After a year of working from home, many of us are endlessly sick and tired video meetings. Now we have an excuse to come out of these conference calls with a new tool called Zoom Escape.
Digital artist Sam Lavigne has made the web application incredibly simple, he first reported of The Verge. All you have to do is install an audio plug-in called VB-Audio from the product Web page, then make sure you’ve selected the right audio devices, then open Normal Zoom. From there, you can play a collection of sound effects in Zoom designed to irritate or annoy your colleagues, apparently to the point where your colleagues will ask you to leave the video call.
Some din the sound effects are a bit simpler than others. The cries of a crying baby and active construction seem to be the safestway to get out of a video meeting, while the sound of Bad Connection pretty realistically mimics the restless sound that people can hear if you have poor internet.
But other effects, like a crying man or the sound of urination, could raise more questions from your co-workers than sympathetic encouragement to disconnectand, if used at the wrong time, may send you to HR. Fortunately, if none of the Zoom Escaper preset clips have the desired effect, you can manually upload your own sounds.. After all, the more you adapt the sound effects to your specific situation, the more credible your excuse is.
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And although Zoom Escaper certainly can’t be used to get out of each video meeting for the foreseeable future, could be a handy tool for those calls in which you simply can no longer cope with madness.
But for me, the most impressive thing about Lavigne’s work is its dedication to reducing Zoom in a search for a better balance between life and life. IIn addition to the Zoom Escaper, Lavigne also performed Computer turned on slowly and Zoom Deleter, the latter usually checks the computer to see if Zoom is installed and automatically destroys it if Zoom is detected.
Lavigne told The Verge that some of the essential principles of his art are “deliberate slowing down, reduced productivity and production, and self-sabotage.” Iat a time when the boundaries between home life and professional life have been virtually nullified they are philosophies that almost everyone can appreciate.