On November 2, 2016, Swedish telecom Tele2 published the Seattle installment of "Settle for More," a campaign built by Stockholm agency Edelman Deportivo. The concept: let viewers step inside the heads of nine personalities around the world through live, first-person video streams with biometric overlays showing pulse, skin response, and brain activity. Nine streams, shot in five countries over a two-month world tour. The cast ran from actor Joel Kinnaman to robot-builder Simone Giertz to, in the agency's words, "a body hacker in Seattle." That one was me.
My segment was filmed at a body hack event at the HiveBIO lab in Seattle, where I spent the stream doing what I do, injecting RFID chips into volunteers, while viewers rode along behind my eyes. The Swedish title translates to "Step inside the head of biohacker Amal Graafstra as he visits a body hack event in Seattle," which for once is a title that promises exactly what it delivers.
Edelman Deportivo reported the campaign reached more than 36.5 million people through earned media, another 36 million on social, and spread to over 150 countries. It picked up an award or two the following year. My contribution required no acting; I just did the installs.