Stimulate
Everything can be digitized and analyzed, this includes the human subconscious.
My research composition is based around the word STIMULATE and I am focusing on an experience between a users subconscious and a visualization.
The main idea behind the development of my visualization is the interpretation of analog waves generated by the body’s subconscious systems.
My original interface was going to use the data users brain waves however the brain waves were difficult to accurately display due to interference from electrical waves and the users heart beat. This is the link to the open source eeg project - http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/
After accidentally discovering how to display the heart beat, I then decided to synchronize the visualization with the users pulse. Early on I thought that it would be a more stimulating experience if the visualization was displayed as wave patterns at the same frequency as the users pulse wave and in turn hopefully trigger an intuitive response.
Looking into waves I found that Lissajous waves are visually interesting, have a wide range of patterns and have more unpredictability (more chance of a happy accident).
My final visualization has circles that pulsate with the heart, lines connect the circles and display the Lissajous waves and patterns. When the users heart beat are faster, the pattern is more erratic and when the heart beat is constant, the pattern is stationary. I also have a sound wave that changes with the heartbeat.
On experimenting with my composition, I have seen colours within the patterns even though it is black and white, this could be an optical illusion caused by waves in harmonic frequencies with colour. I also would like to experiment with using two people’s pulses and see if they adjust to be in-sync.