Urban fantasy writer Lauren Beukes, author of Moxyland and Zoo City, dives into 2015 to find an artist that just wants to make us all smile.
Elana Wessels believes in happiness. More than that, she believes she can actually make people happy.
The 22-year-old “benevolence artist” worked with neuroscientists at Groote Schuur’s research lab, using MRIs to scan the brains of volunteers from different cultural and financial backgrounds while they were exposed to very specific stimuli — from the sound of a toddler giggling to videos of baby sloths on YouTube, sentimental adverts, the feel of money and the smell of apple cinnamon muffins.
Both the videos of the brain imaging and documentary footage of the volunteers giggling and chortling in the MRI scanners are currently being exhibited at the Brodie-Stevenson Gallery in Braamfontein.
But the real art, Wessels says, is happening on the streets. Based on the results, she launched a nationwide Happiness Ambush Campaign, posting pop-ups or samples of the most effective stimuli in unexpected places, using backpackers recruited through notices stuck up at youth hostels to “spread the love right around the country, from dorpies like Harrismith to high-rises in Hillbrow and glossy malls in Hatfield”.
But she is not willing to disclose exactly what the pop-ups are or where you can find them. “It could be an unusual piece of graffiti, or a message scrawled on a bag of frozen peas in the supermarket, or a looped bit of audio from a sound chip embedded in a traffic light, or a Polaroid stuck up at a shebeen.
You won’t know until you encounter one, because part of what makes the brain happy is being delightfully surprised.”