Can You Hear the Faraway Cry?

They say globalization is the topic of the 21st century, but fragmentation is what I see. In such a fragmented society, can people see others’ pain? Can people feel the sufferings of people faraway?

What Is the Issue

Inequality is not just about wealth. There is also inequality in safety and health, materials and resources worldwide.

Inequality

Fragmentation

People in the world have quite different living conditions.

Global fragmentation refers to the absence or underdevelopment of connections between the world community.

The bond between global citizens is not so strong nowadays.

Create conditions for young people not to concern themselves with distant affairs and not to see pain of faraway people

Preliminary Research

Research Topic: To what degree are people concerned about distant affairs and others' sufferings

To narrow down my research topic, I chose armed conflict as a main subject. There are two reasons why armed conflict is a representative type of ‘distant affair’. Firstly, armed conflicts are typical international affairs that are far away from most people’s life, especially the young people. Secondly, armed conflicts are an aggregation of miseries (such as violence, slaughter, rape and poverty) that ever beset mankind.

Research Methods

Literature Review

All the references can be found on Page 20

Semi-Structured Interview

Survey

300 Chinese young people participated in the survey, which tested their knowledge about armed conflicts. Respondents were asked how often they read international news, how they reacted to reports on armed conflicts and whether they had once got involved in fund-raising for refugees or anti-war demonstrations or anything alike. The results were analyzed with SPSS.

Reliability and Validity

Descriptive Analysis

Degree of concern for international affairs

Knowledge about armed conflicts

Knowledge about Geneva Conventions

Frequency of seeing information on armed conflicts

Reaction to information on armed conflicts

More detailed analysis can be found on Page 17

You think people in war zones are related to you

You once participated in activities for people in war zones

Key Insights

Chinese young people know the fact that there are armed conflicts in many parts of the world.

They realize that fragmentation and inequality do exist at a global level.

They do have empathy for situations of those who are in war zones.

However, they pay little attention to the affairs, the people and their sufferings, and the reasons are as follows. Firstly, they regard their concern as ‘meaningless’ and feel that they cannot make a difference. Secondly, they need a trigger to remind them to concern themselves with international issues such as armed conflicts. Thirdly, they are busy with their own stuff.

They think that their passions are conducive to actions.

Ideation

Even in such a fragmented world, people are still likely to pay attention to distant things and faraway people. However, most of the time they ignore their concern and feeling for these things, which hinders them from taking action.

That's why I came up with the idea to use an interactive installation to remind people of their care and make them aware that their feeling can make a difference to others' suffering.

Diagram

During the interaction process, a video representing people's suffering in armed conflicts will be shown to the audiences. At the same time, they will be informed that they can say 'I don't care' if they do have no feeling for the video being played. Also, if they do care about what is being shown, they can turn their passion into force and press the sponge ball in their hands.

When they say 'I don't care', the video will shut off. However, if they press the ball to express their concern instead, another video about how people make a difference to people in war zone will start to play.

Pressure Sensor

Screen

Speech Sound Sensor

Arduino

Processing

Projector

Conceptual Basis

What is my voice

I’m not going to propagate my opinion. Instead, I hope to (a) prompt the target audience to reflect on their relationship with ongoing armed conflicts; (b) help the target audience realize the present fragmentation and inequality; (c) prompt the target audience to ponder what they can do.

Theoretical Background

Before turning the vision into a practical reality, I have to make sure that my idea is be supported by exact theory.

Question1

Why is it likely that the audiences will have feelings for the content of the video?

Firstly, Simulation Theory. Parts of humans’ brain in the medial prefrontal cortex show overlap of activation for both self-focused and other-focused thoughts and judgments. Secondly, Theory of Mind. Humans can use cognitive thought processes to explain the mental state of others.

Question2

Why is it likely that there will be thinking, self-examination and action in the interactive process?

It’s hard for people to forget how they feel, and the feelings can be conducive to thinking and action.

Question3

How can we use ‘feeling’ effectively?

Firstly, people need to see how their action will contribute to the issue. If people believe they have the power to produce results, they will attempt to make things happen. Also, people need to know how to do the thing.

Secondly, tell better stories. Great stories leave space for the audiences, allowing them to put the pieces together for themselves.

All the references can be found on Page 20