Interactive Sensor-Based Art Installations

Art acts as a social cement and a community of minds. In this research, level five students in an art institution were studied. The results show that the created artworks managed to convey more than was originally intended. Art can express concepts which are not visible and can be a tool to see through the thoughts of the artist, specifically those thoughts that cannot be explained in a tangible way. Through its playful and creative nature, art creates the perfect space for capturing the essence of things through metaphor. The beauty of metaphor is that it maintains the ability to have a deeper meaning than what can be perceived at its surface, making it versatile and adaptive as it recalls different memories and streams of thought that are within each different viewer. Moreover, results have shown that art can be a safe space to go to for self-reflection and quiet time, where the student can reflect on their current emotional state and process the fast-paced life which we currently...

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study analyzes how the application of technology in the context of an interactive art installation contributes to the development of Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory of relational aesthetics and fosters social connectivity. To do this, we compare the many styles of interaction and look closely at the strategies of interaction used in new media art, which allow the participant to play an active role, thus engaging with, and even triggering, the interactive quality of the installation. We look at three artists or art collectives whose work is emblematic of this notion: Random International, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Daan Roosegaarde. According to our findings, installation art facilitates social engagement by capitalizing on the participants capacity and desire for social connectivity while providing an aesthetic experience. Interactive installations serve as channels for this social interaction, while also receiving significant support from technology. This study highlights the necessity to consider the expanding social context that has come with the advancement of technology, that announces a future into the realm of interactive art installations.

As rapidly advancing technologies become more widely available, having access to tools that collect biometric data and in particular BCI technology, is providing artists with new ways of exploring our biological selves as well as creating new modes of audience interaction. Brainlight is a large illuminated interactive sculpture that integrates biology, lighting design and BCI technology to explore the hidden aspects of our minds. The installation is controlled with a wireless EMOTIV EPOC+ EEG headset that detects live neural activity which is translated into a light display within the brain sculpture. In real time it visualises the brain frequencies of Theta (3.5–7.5 Hz) as green light, Alpha (7.5–13 Hz) as blue light, and Beta (16–32 Hz) as red light. Previously, in more traditional art, when an audience views an artwork their own psychological process would be a passive, hidden, private experience. The aim of Brainlight is to harness the brain as the creator of an interactive art ...

A new interest in the use of game factors while acquiring new knowledge has emerged, and a number of researchers are investigating the effectiveness of the game-based approach in education systems. Recent research in game-based learning suggests that this approach imparts learning by involving learners in the learning process. The game factors generate affective-cognitive reactions that absorb users in playing the game and positively influence the learning. This paper offers a comparison of the learning processes between the gamebased learning and pen-and-paper approaches. In this paper the analysis of both learning approaches is realized through a braincontrolled technology, using the Emotiv EEG Tech headset, by analyzing the stress, excitement, relaxation, focus, interest, and engagement that the learner is experiencing while going through both approaches.

Can shared intimate experience of social touch be mediated through multi-brain-computer interface (Multi-brain BCI) interaction in public space? Two artistic EEG KISS orchestrations, both multi-modal, multi-brain BCIs, are shown to create novel shared experiences of social touch in public space. These orchestrations purposefully disrupt and translate known forms of face-to-face connection and sound, to re-orchestrate unfamiliar sensory syntheses of seeing, hearing, touching and moving, connected to data-visualization and audification of brain activity. The familiar sensory relations between ‘who you kiss and who is being kissed, what you see and what you hear’ are captured in a model of digital synaesthetics in multi-modal multi brain BCI interaction for social touch. This model links hosted self-disclosure, witnessing, dialogue and reflection to intimate experience in public space through syntheses of the senses. As such, this model facilitates the design of new shared intimate exp...

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the usage of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in optimally distributing a set of permanent stationary sensors to ensure the reliable functioning of a wireless sensors network (WSN) in the case of forest fires. Once a fire occurs, an additional set of sensors are air-dropped over the area. Both stationary and airdropped sensors will form a network that will transmit back to the base critical real-time information. Collected information, such as temperature, wind direction, humidity, pressure and pollution level, will enable the fire fighters to accurately assess the situation before heading on-site. A GIS based, as well as a terrain and obstacle aware procedure is presented in this paper which enables the optimal distribution of the stationary nodes and permits the calculation of several performance parameters such as the network connectivity in 2D and 3D, the total number of generated sub-networks. The proposed procedure is based on ...

Brain computer interfaces are currently considered to greatly enhance assistive technologies and improve the experiences of people with special needs in the workplace. The proposed adaptive control model for smart offices provides a complete prototype that senses an environment’s temperature and lighting and responds to users’ feelings in terms of their comfort and engagement levels. The model comprises the following components: (a) sensors to sense the environment, including temperature and brightness sensors, and a headset that collects electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, which represent workers’ comfort levels; (b) an application that analyzes workers’ feelings regarding their willingness to adjust to a space based on an analysis of collected data and that determines workers’ attention levels and, thus, engagement; and (c) actuators to adjust the temperature and/or lighting. This research implemented independent component analysis to remove eye movement artifacts from the EEG sig...

Through her versatile use of video technology, Nina Sobell explores nonverbal means of communication that interfere with normative modes of behavior and closely regulated interpersonal relationships. Deeply informed by the pursuit of intimate connections, her practice fosters reflection on how we modulate our sense of selfhood through interactions with others. This article examines Sobell’s video performances with chicken carcasses, instantiating the ambiguities of mother- infant relationships, in connection with her Brainwave Drawings, a series of installations based on biofeedback that unveils reciprocal influences between art participants’ psychic states. Even though these sets of works were developed during the same time frame (1974–82) and are equally concerned with bodily communication, they are almost never interpreted as conceptually related. Underscoring their mutual affiliation with a feminist agenda, this article argues that these works are deeply intertwined at the level of their interrogation of socially sanctioned forms of interaction. Embracing the dynamics of open systems, Sobell cultivates fluid forms of communication and exposes the invisible threads that connect us to others. She relies on technological mediation in order to advance a more complex understanding of the biological and social underpinnings of selfhood. Sobell’s works invite viewers to consider interpersonal exchanges that surpass linguistic forms of communication and reveal the porous thresholds between body and mind, self and other, nature and culture.

As rapidly advancing technologies become more widely available, having access to tools that collect biometric data and in particular BCI technology, is providing artists with new ways of exploring our biological selves as well as creating new modes of audience interaction. Brainlight is a large illuminated interactive sculpture that integrates biology, lighting design and BCI technology to explore the hidden aspects of our minds. The installation is controlled with a wireless EMOTIV EPOC+ EEG headset that detects live neural activity which is translated into a light display within the brain sculpture. In real time it visualises the brain frequencies of Theta (3.5-7.5 Hz) as green light, Alpha (7.5-13 Hz) as blue light, and Beta (16-32 Hz) as red light. Previously, in more traditional art, when an audience views an artwork their own psychological process would be a passive, hidden, private experience. The aim of Brainlight is to harness the brain as the creator of an interactive art experience where no physical interplay is required except for the electrical activity of the mind. The project exposes some key developments in the use of BCI technology for artistic purposes, such as how to accurately collect and process EEG data aesthetically, and what license the artist can take with this data in order to facilitate meaning or allow space for the audience to bring their own meaning to the work. This chapter will explore these developments and outline the collaborative process behind the research and development of the work and the contexts in which it has subsequently been exhibited and used by the public. Keywords Electroencephalography (EEG) · Brain-computer interface (BCI) · Brain data visualisation · Neurofeedback · Interaction design · Mind-controlled art · Illuminated brain sculpture · Interactive art · Biofeedback art · Art-science · Audience L. Jade (B) · S. Gentle

This project is open­ended and exploratory. Here's one possibility: design an installation scenario where a person, a mind artist, is seated on a high swivel chair. Behind the mind artist is a display screen or projection. Visitors enter the space and attempt to adjust the mood of the artist through, music, noise, images, gestures, or voice (whispers, sounds, instructions). The artist could even interact with space via binaural recordings that alter the parameters of space. Thanks to the direct connection between the artist's EEG device, a computer and the display, the mood effect will be apparent in some way on the screen. The producers of the software that comes with the EEG device claim that the device picks on people's levels of arousal, boredom, meditative state, etc. In a way we are testing these claims, as well as producing something compelling and exciting as an installation piece. Variations: The artist could be standing, and even moving around in the space, moving in a circle, or lying down. The artist could be blindfolded. The artist could also not receive any stimuli from the audience and instead interact with the installation himself moving blindfolded in a restricted space. He is not allowed to talk. Rather than think of the person as an artist, perhaps he is just a brain. He only gets to interact with the audience and the stimuli he is exposed to in the environment via his brain. It is important to think about the brain as a new interface of interaction via which the performer will communicate his emotions to the audience. Moreover while the performer will move in space blindfolded touch and proprioception will become important tools for his navigation in space. Silence and sound will become also more powerful and influential. It would be interesting to look into the spatial behaviour that the performer will develop under the conditions that you will artificially create. How does the interaction with the audience or the sounds affect his emotional state and his levels of discomfort and how this is apparent in the way he navigates space. Finally you should try and keep the project simple.

Inversus is a digital interactive installation that explores the relationship between user actions with common objects: lamps, speakers and fans. It is an interactive machine that shifts the conceptual understanding a user traditionally has about a specific object, making people wonder: why should a lamp be used only to illuminate? In fact, lamps, speakers or fans are commonly used as output interfaces, imagine now, what would happen if we turn the output into an input interface? This machine explores an inversion on this relationship by using lamps as light sensors, speakers as pressure sensors and fans as blowing sensors.

Virtual and augmented reality have been used in the performing arts with two main purposes in mind: the design of artificial sceneries and the augmentation of the actor's performance. We are mostly interested in the second application that offers new perspectives for the interaction between actors and digital media. This article describes the design of a new interface for the definition and control of multi-layer interactive 2½D scenes by performers. The resulting virtual and animated environment is a stack of semi-transparent layers associated with physical models. Because of their intuitive physical behaviour and their capacity to be adapted to various geometries, these virtual props are well suited for the stage and their manipulation by performers. The interface used to design and control these objects extends the classical layer/mask paradigm to interactive spatialised scenes made of surfaces controlled by physical models such as mass-spring systems. This work is the result of a collaboration between a laboratory in human computer communication and a theater company. It has been successfully implemented in a single-actor theater play, leading to augmented and embodied expressiveness.