“Don’t try to be funny,” explains improv teacher Rick Andrews, “just serve the reality of what’s happening. React earnestly and honestly to the situation that’s arising, listen and play with the fun that is there, and the funny will come.”
When you’re trying to act out scenes such as an arsonist during a corporate job interview or a conversation between a cannibal and his next meal, Rick’s lesson is a difficult one to practice; however, that’s just what my classmates and I have been attempting over the last few Sundays at Rick’s Introduction to Improvisation class at the Magnet Theater. We stumble through cannibal and arsonist small talk, searching for angles that can make these outrageous characters genuine. Afterwards, Rick keeps us on track, reminding us to listen and watch for missed opportunities; those unnoticed moments that could have been further mined for entertainment value.
Affirming and reacting to the details of each other’s performance breathes life into the characters, creating an organic energy that propels the situations down unique and often hilarious paths. Improv, with its shared spontaneity, is a lot like design. We work through a shared creative process, trying to reach relevance in our end product and elicit audience reaction.
Read More »
In 2010, Microsoft changed the way we game with the introduction of the Kinect sensor for their Xbox gaming platform. Gamers were excited and intrigued by Kinect’s ability to read body movements in place of traditional controllers, but hackers and hobbyists especially went to town, leveraging Kinect to make everything from interactive shadow puppets to making yourself invisible on screen through ‘optical camoflauge’. After February 1st, hackers will have the opportunity to capitalize on their inventions because Microsoft will release Kinect for Windows, encouraging designers and developers to utilize the sensor outside the world of gaming. But before we all start dreaming of using Kinect to read (and clean out) our e-mails, there are several challenges that have to be met before it reaches mass adoption.
First, there’s the price; its $250 price point is rather high for a non-essential piece of hardware. Unlike the sleek devices of recent years, the Kinect is an awkward robotic uber-camera that may have difficulty gaining admission to some environments. In order to cross these barriers to cost and comfort beyond early adopting gamers and hackers, the Kinect’s value needs to be communicated as an everyday input platform. Microsoft is depending on developers to create the applications that will create this value and draw consumers in. So what are developers working with? And, more importantly, what will they build? Read More »
