When to Help

Purpose

The aim of our happening was to explore the questions "When do we need help?", "How do we ask for help?" and "How do people respond to those asking for help?"

The first iteration of our wearable

The various items on the shirt represent problems and causes of stress. Some of the symbolism included Homework, making sure you eat right, beauty standards, social anxiety, gaming addiction, financial problems, injury, medication and many more.

The second iteration of our wearable

After feedback to really go all out with the attachments to the shirt, we really tried to find everything that represented stress and difficulty in life.

We added a "smart" component: sewable circuit lights that represented tears.

The personas

So the idea behind the happening was to show someone who has all these problems (represented by his shirt). At first, he tries to do everything on his own but clearly struggles, so he goes up to helper 1 and asks for help. helper 1 represents a selfish helper who only helps themselves, so she says no. 

The character is hurt and now more hesitant to ask for help. 

Helper 2 is an aggressive helper. She has good intentions but is also selfish in the way that she mainly wants to help the character to feel better about herself. She does not take his feelings into account and aggressively helps him with his problems (represented by her taking things off the shirt). She may be causing more damage than good. 

Finally, we see sincere helper 3, she gently asks the character if he needs help with anything. After gaining his consent she proceeds to help him out while taking his feelings into consideration. She is supportive and is doing this not for any selfish reasons but out of genuine concern for the character. She is the ideal helper.

The experiment

The final part of the happening was to have the video start "buffering" and for the group members to appear baffled and in need of help. The goal was to study the audience and see how they respond and if they would offer to help.

This is a video of the class demonstration:

Our goal was to explore the different way people approach asking and offering help. We wanted to make the audience aware that the world isn't black and white and feelings and actions different from person to person. We also wanted to see if the audience would be considerate and offer help and study their reaction.

The critiques

After hearing the critiques, we realize that the skit may not have been as realistic as something like being in a wheelchair and needing a door opened for you. Our project may not be a true representation of human nature and kindness, so going forward, working on making an iteration of the project more tied to reality would be a priority.