Artist Laura Allcorn chats to Norma Burke about FAKE at the Science Gallery Dublin

admin March 8, 2018

Laura Allcorn chatted to Norma Burke ahead of the brilliant new exhibition FAKE at the Science Gallery, Dublin.

We fake laughter all the time. We do it to be polite, hide our ignorance, and even to fit in. Our social interactions sometimes depend on it. Studies show that fake and real laughs vary in speed, pitch, breath sounds and crescendo — and this is consistent across cultures. We actually get better at discerning real laughter from fake laughter as we get older, with the ability peaking in our late thirties. The synthHAsizer is a tool for visitors to record their own fake laugh and use sonic filters to remix it from fake to real.

Laura Allcorn is an experience designer, researcher, and humorist. She founded the Institute For Comedic Inquiry, a comedian-led research group that studies how humor connects people to each other and to new ideas — especially those that challenge narrow assumptions. Laura creates interactive objects and performances that point out absurdities through a technique she calls participatory satire. Her work has been shown around the world, including at CCCB in Barcelona, and ArtScience Museum in Singapore. She earned an MFA in Applied Craft and Design at Pacific Northwest College of Art.