Animus
Animus is a futuristic service that uses Artificial Inteligence and Digital Footprint data to help people rediscover their call to happiness through an inmersive, virtual reality experience.
Background
We started by analyzing “Be right back” of Black Mirror Series (Netflix): A young woman loses her partner and it’s introduced to a service that “clones” him with an artificial inteligence that makes use of his digital footprint.
This episode raises a lot of ethical questions about the limits of technology and pushes us to think what’s the real meaning of being human. The challenge was to imagine the usage of this technology in a positive light.
Black Mirror vs Light Mirror
Black mirror service offering
Using your deceased's loved ones digital footprint and Artificial intelligence, you will receive a synthetic clone of that person for as long as you want.
Light mirror service offering
Using your digital footprint and Artificial intelligence, you will be guided towards self discovery within a given time frame, enough to recover.
Storyboard
When faced with the tragic death of his twin, Klaus felt completely lost, distraught, trying so hard to hold on to the little things that make him feel like his true self. Alas, nothing seemed to really work. At that point, a family member suggests Klaus ANIMUS, a service that offers him the opportunity to detach from his negative thinking and discover how to reincorporate aspects of himself back into his life.
Along with the guidance of his personal and friendly AI generated “hologram”, the service offers him a more tailored way based on his needs relying on the data mining from his social media accounts on the web.
Animus service
Animus is based on a pre-buddhist happiness framework. According to this framework there are 4 key stages for attaining happiness: Compassion without attachment, Simple Joys, Mindfulness and Passion.
Through an inmersive VR experience, our spiritual guide will take you through these stages to heal and grow
System and data
The services makes use of your digital footprint to create a tailored experience. Our artificial inteligence analyzes the people, places, objects, situations, beliefs and feelings of your life to help you reflect on your own life.
Experience prototype
We chose to prototype the experience center room from our service to test the four stages of attaining happiness. We carried out a a research of our user's social media to craft an inmersive experience using light, sounds, video projections, and an actor as the spiritual guide.
Afterwards, we had a co-design session with our user to evaluate the experience.
Letting go of your burdens
Remembering the simple things
Finding guide
Letting go of your burdens
Video prototype session
Prototyping of the experience required us to prepare the setup, the guide and documentation cameras. All of these things happened paralelly, so as to utilize the limited time available at the studio space effectively. Experience testing was followed by a brief feedback session to truly grasp the positive aspects and limitations of the service experience.
The stage set up included set up of lights, projector, projection screen, chairs for the guide and the user and speakers as planned. One of the major difficulties we faced was coverig up the windows as it was too bright for projections. Since we had 1 day as a limited time given for the studio space, we had to be quick on our feet and figure out solutions to best arrange the space according to the desired experience.
Project overview
Academic Project: Politecnico di Milano - Master degree
Duration: 4 months
Design Team: Nina Zanarelli, Bianca Fratin, Silvia Rossetti, Prarthana Shah, Nour Naim, Mildred Figueroa Carrera