ad-free
Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-15
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZJuIJiyh-Y
I used to play this game them I don't know it's name because I came up with it myself but the purpose of it is to look at someone and then try to imagine what it would be like to be him so when I was studying to become a lawyer I would look at my professor and I would think what would be like to be him and
I would to visualize him with his girlfriend sitting on the couch but then I would look at them again and I would see the hair sticking out of his ear and I would think maybe he doesn't have a girlfriend and when I was thinking about this also fund what would be like to be him and then to actually teach us %HESITATION he will be standing in
front of some interested students some board one some curious once but I didn't let myself to this one day I will try to think what it will be like to be the girl sitting right next to me in class and then another day we would discuss a mole %HESITATION the murder case and instead of thinking about the legal subjects I would try to think what it
would be like to be that murderer in my game this is what that was all about trying to stretch your empathy tests because of campy trying to put yourself in someone else's shoes my story is about is trying to put yourself in someone else's shoes it's about empathy and Buffy is the starting point for many things for me it's the starting point for ideas and imagination
and I want to turn those ideas into tangible so so instead of becoming a lawyer I graduated at the royal academy of art and today I ran the concept studio where we work on a whole different kind of projects but I will tell you two recent projects that we've made two experiences where empathy getting yourself in the mind of someone else was the starting point my
first story starts in Japan a couple of years I got the opportunity to work and live in Japan and if you can imagine that's super interesting to be in a country where you have never being because everything is new so you're looking around and discovering all these new things and I was doing that but then one day I stepped into the subway and I set myself
opposite to this man and of course I knew to stories about Japanese businessmen making very long working hours but when I looked at him I also saw something different I saw someone that was commuting the exact same way every day in and I think if you are making the exact same journey day in day out to kind of stop looking around because there's no reason to
discover anything you you've all seen it so you kind of stop looking outside and I think we can all relate to that so I thought about this can actually do something about that can I change the way that we look can I make something that is very boring into something worthwhile looking again so I came up with a very small idea it only exists out of
two stickers %HESITATION to stick us that change the way we commute and the day I come up with that idea was the birth of the man eater thank you %HESITATION in collaboration with the public transport operator we got these because in every single tram in Amsterdam and it was amazing to see how people reacted to it it was really cool to see how something that's more
could actually change the way that they were commuting but the only thing was that there was one and a single group that didn't participate in this fun and I start looking at this and I thought this is actually the group also seen just as much in Japan as I've seen it in Amsterdam and it's a group of the people that are actually on their phone and
I think when you're watching on your phone you have your head bowed down you kind of stop looking around and every possibility to look outside and to discover something new is gone and so you might be surprised that the next project I'm gonna talk about is actually an application we are right now working on that is for all your phone but it all started with this
one %HESITATION single night where a friend of mine invited me to make a little too were on this boat on this lake and it was a beautiful evening and then we were in the middle of that like I said to my friend I wish we could have a photo of this I wish we could actually captured this particular moment but then I said like we could
try to make itself but it wouldn you've never capture what it's actually like and right when when I said that I saw a man standing on the shore and he was actually taking photos of us and I said to my friend I wish I could have that photo that he just made I wish I could see what he actually saw and how he saw us in
the boat on the lake of course there's no way to do that I mean you can try to shout your phone number but it will never work and then I thought this is interesting so when I came back to my studio I talked about this with my team and I said maybe we can replicate this because I'm curious how what does it look like when you
get to see how someone else sees you so one day we started this experiment and that my project assistant would go on the corner after street while I was sitting and drinking a coffee on the terrace and she would ask people to participate in this experiment in one day did she would hand them a photo of me with my phone number and she would ask them
can you have a look at this guy and when you walk around and you walk back to your wherever you go to we review going to the please look around and see if you can find him M. we actually see him then take a photo of him and then send it over straight to his phone so while I was enjoying my drink I sometimes had to
giggle but all these photos started pouring in and it was really we don't know witness how some of these so many people are actually participating in this %HESITATION and I was sitting there and I was just drinking my coffee but after awhile I saw a man sitting right next to me and he had kind of a weird %HESITATION expression on his face and he said to
me should I know you and I didn't get it sauce that what what do you mean innocent well I'd be sitting here while and I've seen all these people taking photos of you so you must be famous and right there and then it struck me because a fault if now simply because people are taking pictures of me I am famous then they must be the paparazzi
and I thought what can we do with this can we make this into something because in my daily life I often see beautiful moments in the lives of other people and I think it will be really cool if I could actually capture such a moment and that then get it sent straight to the person that's actually in the photo even though it's a complete stranger straight
to default and right now this is what we're working on that set project called shoot me and then shoot me you receive photos off yourself made by complete strangers we are now testing this on the local school and it's amazing to see our hundred students were some of the all in directing so divisive often keeps you actually from looking around and to discover someone else learn
to interact turned into something where people start to interact even with people that have never met I'll leave you with this I'm I'm not here to teach you a lesson but I hope I gave you a little bit of an insight of what it's like to be in my mind I really like to step in the shoes of someone else and then try to look around
