One of the main interests for all of us as collaborators was the question of how to obtain different information from the body and translate that data to different stimuli. We explored different body sensors and micro controllers that could offer an insight on the changes that occur during the movement process to the body and the way they are measured and manifested by this machinery.
We wanted to uncover three major components: what values the sensors perceive, how noisy those values are, and what meaningful interpretations arose for both performers and audience, separate from the machines capabilities. |
Through all the various apparatuses we wanted to try, there was not enough time required to develop and build upon all our aspirations. Given the uncertainty of the artistic value of those results, we decided to focus more on other aspects of the research, since we were involved in multiple roles as developers and performers.
Most of the sensors that are listed below were used during the experiments in the two-month long residency. At the final presentation, we avoided attaching sensors to the body but we used some of the offline data we acquired during the experiments in the final presentation. Sensors |
The x-OSC is a wireless I/O board that includes 32 high-performance analogue/digital channels and on-board sensors (gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer). The data is sent via OSC messages over WiFi. There are multiple advantages of using the x-OSC device to detect micro-movements as inputs to map sound, lights, and any other computer-controlled data as outputs. The device is quite small, allowing integrated use with various body parts, costumes, and sets. The device is simply configured through a web browser and is more stable then most micro-controllers available. Sebastian Madgwick spearheads this project, partnering with dance choreographers and other artists for further capabilities of this device. |
The minibees (of Sense/Stage) began as a research/creation project at Concordia University, designed by Marije Baalman. These battery-powered, wireless PCBs can be worn on the wrist, sewn into clothing, or embedded in different objects. Despite the endless possibilities of this device, the configuration and inclusion of other sensors added to the board was quite complicated. We did not have enough time in the process and rehearsal phase to incorporate productively this device in our work. |
BITalino is a low-cost toolkit to learn and prototype applications using body signals. Although perhaps an ideal conceptual device to experiment with our goal of disseminating different ways to output internal physiological states of the body to the audience, we did not have enough time to actively test all of the different components. We hope to be able to implement and explore this in a further work. |
Pulse Sensor is an open source hardware project by Joel Murphy and Yury Gitman. Practically, the device measures your heart-rate by infrared light reflected by the blood circulating inside your body. One of the key components of our project was to ideally measure the heart-rate of the performers in real-time, taking into account the differences that might occur by encounters with performers and audience members alike. Unfortunately, the pulse sensor was not stable enough for the practical application of obtaining the performers’ heartbeat in real-time and mapping that information to different applications. |
The T31 band was a stable and accurate transmitter to measure the body’s heart rate. Through the interface board designed by danjuliodesigns and SparkFun, we were able to transmit the data through Bluetooth, but we were restricted by the amount of transmitters (only one worked at a time) and range. Through the data obtained by this heart-rate, we visualized the information by mapping the lights underneath the platforms. |
The Muscle Sensor v3 Kit measures the filtered and rectified electrical activity of a muscle; outputting 0-Vs Volts depending the amount of activity in the selected muscle, where Vs signifies the voltage of the power source. The sensor was quite complicated and unstable for the type of application needed for actual moving bodies. In the future, a more wearable-sensitive device to measure muscle activity will need to be created. |