Marit Westerhuis

Portfolio

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Figure 1.

Displaying physiological data collected by the Empatica E4 (MIT) containing the following sensors: 

1. Photoplethysmography (PPG) to provide blood volume pulse, from which heartrate, heart rate variability, and other cardiovascular features may be derived.

2. Electrodermal activity (EDA), used to measure sympathetic nervous system arousal and to derive features related to stress, engagement, and excitement.

3. 3-axis accelerometer, to capture motion-based activity.

4. Infrared thermopile, reading skin temperature.

The data acquisition is done real-time, whilst subject (M. Westerhuis) is wearing the device physiological data is collected (from 10.00 until 18.00) and the levels in the graph change live according to the data produced by the subject.

Red: Blood puls volume

Orange: Heart beat per minute

Yellow: Sweat

Green: Movement

Blue: Body temperature

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XY fountain,

Draw while you urinate or defecate. The machine is connected to sound sensors placed in the toilet of a public building. The sensors pick up the amplitude of the sounds you make while using the toilet. The X movement is based on the sounds made in de women’s bathroom and the Y movement is based on the men’s bathroom. The harder you shit or pee the bigger the lines and contribution in this drawing. (Every day the color of the pen is changed).

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During the last exhibition in NP3 I lived in the space for over a month, slept there and worked there during the exhibition. This was my workspace/laboratory. On the background you see a visualisation of the research into the PH values of my urine.

Photo: Jan Tengbergen

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Ongoing research/examination: Since the 18th November (my birthday) 2015 I started collecting colors (RGB data) with a self made device worn around my arm from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed. This device is able to measure all the colors that are in the surrounding I was in during that day. After a day of measuring, I have around 700 till 100 colors which are averaged into one single color. Every block of color is one day. Note: the black days, are days when the device was broken, or I was lazy, tired, lost the device, sick of the research etc. I wanted to show this human side of myself as well, because I strive to look as honest towards the self as possible. 

Photo: Jan Tengbergen

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During the Solo Exhibition, I lived, Worked and slept in the exhibition space, because of the researches going on for 24 hours, 7 days a week. Under this bed I attached a drawing machine, able to draw the movements of my sleep during the night.

Photo: Jan Tengbergen

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This I a work made with PH strips that will change color when it makes contact with your urine (or spit) in order to tell you something about you PH value (ranges from 5.5 till 9, 5.5 is really acidic and 9 is really alkaline). I have done this since the 18th of November, 3 times a day(morning, afternoon, evening).

Photo: Jan Tengbergen

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Ongoing research/examination: I designed 7 forms. I research my poop, my studio hours, my blood pressure, my sex life, my experiences in the art world, my emotional state,  my urine, my eating habits etc.  And I fill in these forms every day, since the first of April until ....

Photo: Jan Tengbergen

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Result of the Performance In SIGN, Groningen. Made 30 drawings of 30 different interactions with visitors.

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Self Examination (No. 23)-Reacting to others.

I fabricated a machine that reacts live to my emotional arousal level by measuring the amount of sweat secretion from my sweat glands. With this machine I do drawing sessions of numerous activities, mundane ones, while reading a book, having sex and in this case during a performance of the exhibition opening. During this performance I invited people to sit in front of me for a minute, while I was attached to a GSR sensor. The data of my sweat levels were generated to a moving pencil, moving up when sweating more, moving down when sweating less. The visitor could see my inner reaction being drawn real-time. I did this for three hours and made 30 drawings of my reaction to 30 different people. 

Special thanks to SIGN Groningen for supporting this project.

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06-11-2015 (11:22-00:34),

Visualisation of two types of data I collected while working in the studio.

The color is the average color of working in the studio that whole day. With a self made  device  worn around my arm. See previous post about the device. 

With the color data after a day(rgb code, converted to RALcode) I go to DIY stores and a paint of a day is being mixed there. 

The other type of data is a visualisation made with a drawing machine that reacts to the amplitude of the sounds that i have produced during that day.

[maritwesterhuis]

Since the 18th of november 2015 I started collecting colors (RGB data) with a self made device (se Fig. 2) worn around my arm (see Fig. 1) from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed.

This device is able to measure all the colors of for example a room that I was in, the supermarket that I went to etc. Once every minute this device makes a calculation on how much red, green and blue there was reflected onto the device. After the calculation of all the colors that the device ‘saw’ an average is calculated. After a day of measuring I have around 700 till 1000 colors which are also averaged into one single color.

[maritwesterhuisdata]

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Childhood artefacts:

I went to the attic of my old home and searched for objects that have a memorie attached to them. I measured the colors from every object and averaged this into 1 color per object. This resulted in a book with color swatches. 

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