December 13, 2004
Unconscious Flow
Virtual Mermaids Capturing Our Emotions
In face-to-face communication and to abide by social norms, we sometimes have to lie: put a big smile on our faces instead of bursting into tears or greet visitors warmly when we are in a bad mood. But, the signs that our bodies express as communication (body language) can betray us.
Unconscious Flow, by Japanese artist Naoko Tosa, tries to capture human emotions and use them as an element in a machinic interaction. The work measures the heartbeat of the "honest" body and uses other technologies to reveal a new code of non-verbal communication from a hidden dimension in society. It's what Tosa calls "techno-healing art."
Two computer-generated mermaids function as individual agents for two viewers. Each mermaid moves in sync with the heart rate detected by an electrode attached to the collarbone of its viewer. Then, using a system that calculates the mutual heart rate, both mermaids express hidden non-verbal communication.
Thanks to a camera that picks up hand gestures and a personal computer that analyzes the images, the synchronization interaction model is applied to determine the mermaid's behavior. For a high degree of synchronism, the agents mimic the hand gestures of their subjects, but for a low degree of synchronism, the agents run away.
If one mermaid agent touches the other, a pseudo-touch can be felt through the use of a vibration device. As for background sound, the heart sound of the subjects are picked up by an electronic stethoscope and processed for output on a personal computer.
Posted by Regine at December 13, 2004 01:15 PM
