he who laughs last laughs for eternity

What's laughter all about? Is laughter strictly a human phenomena? What makes something funny or unfunny? Who decides what’s funny ... or how funny something comes across? Is there any actual correlation between humor and laughter? After all, people laugh for such an extensive variety of reasons — and in so many different life situations, don't they? Are there certain social and cultural constraints that make the valuation or degree of funniness entirely subjective depending on nearly overwhelming shifting variables in a given instantiation of potential humor?

The laughterLife project work I've been conducting since 2008 looks at laughter through a collection of eclectic lenses — each lens serving as a different perspective that helps inform critical research, interdisciplinary experimental artwork and faux-academic writing to raise topics, views, questions and areas of wonder around the human phenomena of laughter and what it means for us in the world.

Progress, links and further details from the laughterLife will be posted here from time to time. Until the next update, you can read more about me on my website or check out Laugh Institute online.