state.scape: EEG-based Responsive Art Installation

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By mirjana prpa, svetozar miucin & bernhard riecke

State.scape: Using EEG-based brain-computer interfaces for a responsive art installation

State.scape is an inter­ac­tive instal­la­tion in which audio-visu­als are gen­er­at­ed from users affec­tive states (engage­ment, excite­ment, and med­i­ta­tion). The instal­la­tion relies on a brain-com­put­er inter­face based vir­tu­al envi­ron­ment and soni­fi­ca­tion, which both served as a plat­form for the explo­ration of users’ affec­tive states in a respon­sive art installation

Studies on elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) based brain- com­put­er inter­faces (BCI) in the past have focused mostly on real time task pro­cess­ing such as using brain­waves for moving an object on the screen but more recent­ly, there has also been a push towards using BCI for track­ing emo­tion­al states or intentions.
To what degree users are aware of their influ­ence on the system?
A vir­tu­al envi­ron­ment in Unity3D in form of an art instal­la­tion incor­po­rat­ing an EEG-based brain com­put­er inter­face (BCI) is placed in a dark room, with a video pro­jec­tion dis­play­ing a com­put­er-ani­mat­ed flock of birds.
Simulation para­me­ters (e.g., number of birds, flying speed and motion type, as well as ambi­ent sound­scape) either direct­ly cor­re­spond­ed to the user’s cur­rent state assessed in real-time either by an Emotiv Epoc EEG head­set (exper­i­men­tal con­di­tion) or were ran­dom­ly gen­er­at­ed (as a con­trol condition).
The results cor­rob­o­rate the poten­tial of BCI-sup­port­ed inter­ac­tive immer­sive envi­ron­ments. Even though the par­tic­i­pants didn’t know which emo­tion­al state was mapped to which sim­u­la­tion para­me­ter, the results demon­strate that par­tic­i­pants were in most cases able to rec­og­nize the pat­terns of changes in the sim­u­la­tion and relate those to their inner feel­ings at that moment. This, in turn, direct­ly affect­ed their degree of immer­sion in the environment.

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[mediatags]stateScape[/mediatags]

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