For this project I decided to create new associations with a common object (i.e., an egg) using a surprise factor. Once I decided to use eggs, the obvious thing to do was to modify its content, but I wanted people to engage more than one sense during the experience, so I thought about changing their smell too. Once I defined what to do with the objects themselves, I started thinking about how I could set up the experience to emphasize the surprise effect. Then I remembered a talk I attended to last semester where it was mentioned that a good way to do so is to have three identical objects (in appearance) where the first two are “normal” and the third one is “especial” or “unexpected”. I liked this idea a lot because, besides allowing me to fulfill the goal I had in mind, it allowed me to reconceive this activity as “telling a story”. The story starts with a common and well know object (i.e., eggs). You are prompt to analyzing the first one, and after doing so for a while you get to the conclusion that it is, indeed, just the typical egg you are used to. Then you go to a second egg. You might expect it to be somehow different, but, disappointingly, it is not. It is another typical thing. Finally you get to the third egg, and you probably do not know what to expect anymore. Most likely you will not find anything extraordinary. But then, when you interact with it you discover something weird. Why would an egg smell like peppermint, mandarin, or ginger? This makes no sense, and you want to keep analyzing it. Then you find something else that is completely unexpected: when you lift it the egg is extremely light, when you shake it does not feel like the other eggs, or it clinks. Now you are surprised! (climax point.) But the story does not end here, you are dying to discover what is inside of the egg. So you break it and find an empty shell, a stainless steel chain or green jelly. What?! Now the new associations with the “special” egg make sense, but you still do not understand how the trick was carried out… and once you do the story comes to an end.
Characteristics, properties, and emotions typically associated with your original object
Mine
Healthy
Fragile
Egg smell
Food
Normal egg weight
Liquid inside
Roundish
Group 1 (Smell and break)
Smells like an egg
Strange
Group 2 (Smell and shake)
Fart
Toilet
Hard boiled
Cooked
Fresh
Group 3 (Lift and smell)
Bad
Neutral
Goose
Smells bad
Unbalanced
Characteristics, properties, and emotions associated with your new object
Group 1 (Smell and break)
Toothpaste
Jello!
Hard boiled and dyed
Group 2 (Smell and shake)
Pepper
Instrument
Dance
Group 3 (Lift and smell)
Orange
Crisp