The Fun Theory

The VW's The Fun Theory is an effort built around the idea that you can use fun to change people's behaviors.  They try to prove this theory through a contest where people submit their social behavioral experiments in fun.  You would probably recognize some of the entries (such as the piano stairs). 

In enjoyed the latest winner, The Speed Camera Lottery, by Kevin Richardson.  This experiment tries to get drivers to obey the speed limit for fun, by turning a speed camera into a lottery machine.  The speed camera takes pictures of people who speed, in order fine them, and pictures of people who follow the speed limit, in order to give them some of the money collected from the speeders in the form of a lottery.  The results are pretty impressive.

City Eyes

City-Eyes uses Amsterdam windows to experiment with the social boundaries of public vs private space.  A windows is normally a private view on to a public space, but what if the directionality was switched and the private view into people's homes was featured.  The City-Eyes exploration has looked at 5 different windows so far; a window with curtains on the outside, a shop window that darkened during the day and lit up during the night, a window with a dining room table extending to the street, a window with an oval mirror on both sides, and a window set up that projected passers-by into the interior private space.  This exploration was conducted by DUS architects.

24 Hours at Sundance

Today I am following 24 Hours at Sundance.  It is an experimental live reality tv game where all of the video feeds are streaming live from mobile phones using Qik.  The show is hosted by Kevin Rose and Ashton Kutcher, with 4 video bloggers as contestants.  The contestants are given challenges to complete over the next 24 hours (many challenge ideas submitted via Twitter to Ashton and Kevin).  You can watch, comment or participate live using Qik.

This is such a fantastic idea.  So far, it is playing out like you would expect a true live internet experiment to.  I'm staying glued to my mobile phone all day.

Follow the Host's Qik feed here: Ashton, Kevin

And the contestants' feeds here:  CJ Peters, Irina Slutsky,  Meghan Asha, Matt and Shira.