MORE THAN JUST A GAME: COMFORT CONTROL EXHIBITION
INCLUDED IN ART IN MOTION III: LUNA PARK,
USC'S FESTIVAL OF TIME-BASED MEDIA

Los Angeles, CA- Bound to a chair by wrist restraints and placed in a recliner facing a large-screen TV, you are pulled into an intense game of objectives, penalties, and rewards. Only the right emotional expressions will decide your fate. No, this is not a new reality game show. It is the result of collaborative efforts of engineer and computer scientist Douglas Fidaleo, visual artists Brian Cooper and Tomo Isoyama. This large-scale art installation will be featured at the Raid Projects located at the Brewery in Los Angeles, CA.

Part video game and part amusement park ride, participants line up in rows to enter a den-like domestic interior complete with wood-effect paneling. Participants will then be seated in lay-z-boy recliners and will view a large TV console. Once seated, the sense of comfortable familiarity is disrupted as armchair restraints immobilize the viewer and the television begins to issue its demands. The bound participant is engaged in a game that requires a series of specific emotional responses and offers the reward of freedom for the "right" answers.

Dealing with issues of emotional expression in relation to social/psychological situations that demand specific responses, the game has been created within a satirical "entertainment center" environment that involves penalties, rewards, goals, and expressions in order to play.

The participant is monitored by a digital video camera that uses software to detect and measure facial expressions, which is an interface between the participant and the game. This technology adds a further dimension to the piece by highlighting the blurry edges of public and private space. It does so by demonstrating the ever-increasing use of surveillance video and facial analysis technologies by various law enforcement and security agencies...

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