‘In the Moment’
Interactive Experience
CIANT Center for Art and New Technologies Prague
2015 November
I have lead a team that won the Europeana Space ‘Hacking the [Dancing] Body’ Prague 2015 Hackathon for the Czech Republic and went on to the European Finals in London in early 2016.
Team:
Ivor Diosi - concept and direction, Virtual Reality visual design, interaction design, Kinect, Unreal Engine
Julia Gleich - concept, somatic movement, project pitch (poetry)
Martin Zrcek - vvvv, 3D models
Dmitri Berzon - NeuroSky hardware, OpenVibe, python
Cyril Kaplan - NeuroSky software, vvvv
Description:
Portal or Gateway conjuring visual imagery from the Europeana collection.
3D stereoscopic interactive experience with outcome of entry into the imagery of dance and somatic world. A process of discovering your own active calm and developing greater awareness of the changes involved in transitioning from one state to the next. Ultimately this could become a larger gaming activity associated with refining states of consciousness while increasing awareness of the soma (Ironically this word once referred to an intoxicating drug that equates with bodily knowledge).
Elements:
Two black suns controlled by each wrist.
Liquid mercurial bubble moved by the head, with its volume controlled by EEG wave measurements. The higher the peak of the waves, the smaller the bubble, the smaller your immmersive presence - the calmer the waves, the larger the presence. The idea is to expand the kinesphere through meditative relaxation, potentially using calming techniques or mindfulness.
There are further elements that appear upon movement, grow and create directional reach, emerging from the locations of the black suns and diminish with increasing stillness.
Possible use: bio-feedback therapy systems that use the technique to train people to improve their health by controlling certain bodily processes, that normally happen involuntarily, such as heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, and skin temperature, through mental stillness within physical movement. (This is a different approach and may help with kinaesthetic learners and others who relax through movement or need to find ways to perform physical actions but with relaxation.)
Imagery: Pina Bausch - Tanz Teatr Wuppertal, Loie Fuller, Portrait of dancer from Ljulbljana, Scene from performance in Dvojnic
More about the Europeana Space Prague Hackathon 2015