2014–2016 · VR biofeedback · Metaverses, University of Oregon

    mYndful

    mYndful is a group of immersive biofeedback environments developed within Metaverses, the interdisciplinary project Hannes Bend initiated and led at the University of Oregon. The work grew from visual-stimuli research begun in 2014 into the biofeedback environments that followed. Its development drew on EEG research into responses to visual stimuli in Edward Vogel's laboratory, exploratory fMRI and EEG work on meditation with Michael Posner and collaborators, and electron microscopy at CAMCOR. Heart-rate and breathing signals became material for real-time image, sound and interaction: a way to investigate how a body participates in constructing its environment.

    The research was presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2016 Spring Symposium Series — Well-Being Computing: AI Meets Health and Happiness Science, held at Stanford University, where the presentation received a Best Presentation Award.

    Role: Visiting scholar in the Benjamín Alemán Laboratory for Quantum and Nanoscale Physics and artist-in-residence with the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon. Hannes initiated and led Metaverses and first-authored the 2016 AAAI proceedings paper; co-authors are credited in the paper record.

    University of Oregon · VR biofeedback · First-author AAAI symposium paper, 2016

    Walkthrough

    Documentation, 2014–2016

    mYndful — VR biofeedback (walkthrough)

    Documentation of the guided body scan, breath synchronization and heart-rate visualization modules (3:00).

    Paper and posters

    Symposium poster · 2016

    Mindful Technologies — AAAI Spring Symposium poster

    Hannes Bend and co-authors; presented at Stanford University, 2016.

    Open original poster

    Project poster · 2014–2016

    Metaverses — University of Oregon project poster

    Metaverses project, University of Oregon, with its collaborators.

    Open original poster

    Modules poster · 2015–2016

    Immersive Mindful Technologies — mYndful VR modules

    Hannes Bend, Metaverses, University of Oregon.

    Open original poster

    The paper and the posters are separate records. Previews are for recognition; open the original to read poster text at its available resolution. Paper record and sources.

    Research and development

    At the EEG monitoring station during exploratory meditation research at the University of Oregon, 2014–16.
    Preparing an EEG session with researchers at the University of Oregon during the Metaverses / mYndful research period, 2014–16.

    Four strands fed the environments. In Edward Vogel's laboratory, visual-stimulus EEG research recorded responses to images; the 2016 paper reports 44 participants and more than 30,000 image ratings across the study. Separately, exploratory meditation research combining EEG and within-person fMRI was developed with Michael Posner and collaborators. CAMCOR electron microscopy supplied source imagery (below). The physiological-feedback environments then used heart-rate and breathing signals — not EEG in every module. The programme included two IRB-approved studies. This research was exploratory: it informed the artwork and does not demonstrate a clinical or therapeutic outcome.

    From CAMCOR microscopy to Nanoscape

    Microscopy acquisition and imaging workflow at the University of Oregon, 2014–16.
    Electron-microscopy source image made through the University of Oregon materials-characterization facilities, 2014–16.
    The same nanoscale imagery translated into Nanoscape, a navigable mYndful environment with physiological feedback, 2016.
    Overhead view from the CAMCOR nanoscale-microscopy studies, University of Oregon, developed within Metaverses, 2014–2016.

    At CAMCOR — the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon — electron microscopes produced images of structures far below the scale of vision. In Nanoscape, those source images were rendered at human scale as an interior landscape a participant could move through, with physiological feedback shaping the environment.

    The biofeedback environments

    Each environment follows the same loop: a physiological input — respiration, pulse or heart-rate variability — is mapped through custom parameters to changes in image and/or sound, and the participant encounters that feedback while continuing to breathe and respond. The paper discusses EEG as a possible neurofeedback extension; it did not drive every deployed module, and the software did not diagnose emotions.

    Heart Orb / Ocean, 2015. A luminous sphere pulses with the viewer's cardiac rhythm; as the heart slows the horizon opens into sunlit calm, as it accelerates the sky darkens and the environment grows turbulent.
    Body Scan, 2015. A guided somatic body scan: a supine body within a mirrored horizon, a translucent figure marking the movement of attention. Breath and heartbeat modulate light, ripple and colour temperature.
    Sonification Mandala, 2015. A predominantly auditory module: a generative sonic field and its radial geometry entrained to the viewer's pulse.
    Nanoscape — see the microscopy sequence above
    Nanoscape, 2015–2016 — see the microscopy sequence.

    Presentations

    Presenting Mindful Technologies at the AAAI 2016 Spring Symposium, Stanford University.
    mYndful VR demo, 2016 — AAAI Spring Symposium, Stanford University.
    mYndful VR, 2016 — Further Future 002, Mojave Desert.
    Installation view of mUltiverseS (2008) and mYndful (2016) in Disarming Geometries, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Long Island City, 2017, curated by Gabriel de Guzman.

    Event types are listed as recorded: a conference talk is not described as a live VR demonstration, and an institutional appearance is not described as an exhibition.

    • 2015 · Conference presentation and critique programme — Metaverses/Seecular at the a2ru GroundWorks National Conference, Virginia Tech, including the transdisciplinary critique session. Official programme (PDF)
    • 2015 · Conference presentation — Toward a Science of Consciousness, Helsinki — the earlier visual-stimuli art–science research.
    • 2015 · Research presentation — Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA), Rice University.
    • 2016 · Proceedings paper, presentation and award — AAAI Spring Symposium on Well-Being Computing, hosted at Stanford University: first-authored paper “Mindful Technologies: Research and Developments in Science and Art”, presentation and Best Presentation Award; attendees also tried the VR. Paper (PDF)
    • 2016 · Conference presentation — “Metaverses/Myndful,” UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center conference. Conference page
    • 2016 · Conference presentation — The Science of Consciousness, Tucson — VR meditation environments and physiological feedback.
    • 2016 · Institutional appearance — Bell Labs, New Jersey, in the context of Experiments in Art and Technology.
    • 2016 · Public demonstration — Jamaica Flux, Queens, New York.
    • 2016 · Public demonstration — Further Future 002, Mojave Desert.
    • 2017 · Group exhibition — Disarming Geometries, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Long Island City, curated by Gabriel de Guzman — mYndful shown with the painting mUltiverseS. Gallery brochure (PDF)

    Further records are on the Metaverses research page and in the essay True Art Is Always Pioneering.

    What followed

    The same loop — sensing a physiological state and adapting an environment to it — continued, with different collaborators and contexts, in Biofields, SEAing Breath and AWERE; in the proposed shared space of FORMLITH; and later in adaptive-interface research and patents.

    Date
    2014–2016 (visual-stimuli research from 2014; biofeedback environments 2015–2016)
    Medium
    Virtual reality, heart-rate and breath biofeedback, sonification
    Status
    Exhibited and presented as research demonstration
    Developed within
    Metaverses, University of Oregon (2014–2016)
    Hannes Bend's role
    Visiting scholar in the Benjamín Alemán Laboratory for Quantum and Nanoscale Physics and artist-in-residence with the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon.
    Presented
    AAAI 2016 Spring Symposium (Well-Being Computing), Stanford University · UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, 2016 · Jamaica Flux, Queens, 2016 · Further Future 002, Mojave Desert, 2016 · Disarming Geometries, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, 2017
    Credits
    Hannes Bend, with collaborators at the Alemán Quantum and Nanoscale Physics Lab and the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon; paper authors: Hannes Bend, Shawn Slater, Benjamin Knapp, Nuo Ma, Robert Alexander, Bella Shah and Ryan Jayne

    Sources

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