The Heart Library Project is an interactive art exhibition designed for presentation in hospitals and health care settings. Participants use emotionally-mediated changes in their heart-rate patterning to influence the colour of a video mirror-image of themselves, projected on the ceiling above them.
The project invites visitors to spend some time observing and reflecting on interactions between their heart, nervous system and mental/emotional focus via sounds and visuals that respond to subtle changes in heart rhythm.
After their interaction with the interactive video image, participants are invited to contribute a response to the work in the form of a hand-drawn experience map and recorded interviews – these contributions constitute ‘The Heart Library’ – a celebration and reflection of the body as a living experience, imbued with feelings, motivations, history and imagination…
Where a traditional artwork has the capacity to solicit an emotional response in the viewer, in George Khut’s The Heart Library Project – you the viewer – through your emotions have the capacity to influence the appearance of the artwork itself. The Heart Library Project celebrates the human body as a felt experience – a body informed by life experiences, worldly relations, and personal motivations.
Biofeedback training refers to processes by which people can learn to sense, and subsequently influence, subtle aspects of their physiology via some form of electronically controlled display. Electronic sensors record otherwise imperceptible changes in the subject’s body such as brainwaves, heart rate or muscle tension and the information extracted is used to control changes in some form of visual, auditory or tactile feedback. Subjects can then use this feed back to sense, and eventually influence, the processes being measured through an ongoing course of act ion, sensation, reflection and experimentation.
Biofeedback training is presently used in the treatment of a wide variety of health problems, from muscle rehabilitation to stress-related conditions. Biofeedback training’s growing use is representative of a broader trend towards the incorporation of evidence-based behavioral-medicine approaches in conventional Western medicine.
The use of bio-electric sensing technologies in art dates back to the early sixties with Alvin Lucier’s seminal 1964 performance Music for 5010 Performer and David Rosenboom’s extensive body of work exploring brainwave based music. More recent examples include Char Davis’ Osmose and Ephemere installations along with works by such artists as Ulrike Gabrielle, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, and Mariko Mori.
My work with biofeedback has centred on the potential of body-focussed interactions as catalysts for personal insight and aesthetic appreciation. Implicit within the experience of biofeedback is a more holistic approach to physiology and its relationship to subjective experience and social context – the body is not simply a passive receiver of care and stimulus, but an active agent endowed with a sense of curiosity, playfulness and complex, often competing, motivations.
The Heart Library Project uses heart rate biofeedback to exp lore psychologically mediated changes in heart rate patterning. Changes in heart rate pattern control the texture, colour and sound of the interactive artwork. Contrary to popular misconception – a healthy heart rate exhibits a pattern variation known as heart rate variability (HRV). People interacting with these works often ask me if they ‘are ok?’ – as if my intention with this work was to provide some form of expert diagnosis or therapeutic intervention – to which I reply that what’s more important here is their capacity to form their own in sights and understandings. The work celebrates the body for the person that it is – not simply as a collection of problems and demands, but as a bearer of memories, yearnings and potentials. Through my collaboration with Caitlin Newton – Broad I’ve been working to intensify this aspect of the work done by t he audiences, through the collection and representation of participant experiences in the form of illustrated maps and video interviews and am keen to present these works in hospital and health promotion settings, as a form of interactive, arts-in-health.
George Poonkhin Khut, 2008
Accompanying George Khut’s interactive artwork is an invitation for visitors to take part in and ‘record’ a description of their body, its senses, memories, hot spots and phantoms.
George and I have spent time together, on a research project in 2007, considering how his biofeedback-driven work might be placed in a health care setting, an obvious landing place for an artwork responding to heart rate and breath pattern s. We wondered, what ways could we engage people passing through a hospital, [visitors, patients, staff) to take time out for an uncanny art -health experience? We wondered how would people understand the work if they could record their own experience through an object of reflection?
As part of this research we spoke to people working in hospitals and in somatic therapy. Following our conversations and George’s own close interest in the experiments of artist Lygia Clark we arrived at a simple format a recording station with a table, art tools and a ‘body map’ at which people could spend as much or as little time as they liked, describing what happened to their bodies.
The “body map” – like a generic medical androgen – is ready to be filled in, rubbed out, expanded. In our pilot work, this invitation resulted in a series of extraordinary figures, expanding our appreciation of the complex sensations our bodies carry, affirming the childlike pleasure of representing ourselves as rich territory, beyond the language of medical diagnosis.
Caitlin Newton-Broad, 2008
Production Credits
George Poonkhin Khut: Artwork concept, interaction design and sound David Morris-Oliveros: ‘Kikura’ data visualisation engine, and technical support Caitlin Newton-Broad: Original concept development and prototyping Greg Turner (Interaction Consortium): Max-MSP data analysis and fuzzy mapping tools Jason McSweeney: Biofeedback data analysis and signal processing
Biographies
George Poonkhin Khut is an artist-researcher working in the area of interactive media in an interdisciplinary arts/health context. Working from the notion of the art exhibition as public research laboratory, George’s interactive works, as developed from his doctoral research, focus on the use of biofeedback and physiologically responsive audio-visual systems as tools for sensing and re -imagining our experience of our selves in relation to our body and its processes. George has exhibited throughout Australia, Britain, South-East and China, and has been the recipient of several grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Tasmania . Recent works include Drawing Breath, Cardiomorphologies v.1 with John Tonkin and Cardiomorphologies v.2 with Lizzie Muller and Greg Turner.
Greg Turner is a Sydney-based interaction designer and computer scientist who specialises in creativity support. His Ph.D. research was concerned with the development of new technology and methodology to support the creation of interactive art, and now he makes art systems for artists, and web sites for people with great ideas.
David Morris-Oliveros is a software engineer with extensive experience in video game and graphic programming. He has worked on several game titles for Playstation3 and Nintendo Wii . His love of visuals and music has lead him to produce real-time audio-visual demo programs.
Caitlin Newton-Broad is a producer and colla borative artist making work grounded in performance, place, community and new media. She has worked as a direc tor, dramaturg, tertiary teacher, project manager and writer in Australia and internati onally. Cait lin joined Performance Space, Syd ney as an associate director in late 2005 working with the performance and development programs. Caitlin Newton-Broad has been assisted by Naomi Derrick for The Heart Library Project’s Open Studios. Naomi is an emerging artist who has be en involved in the artist-run projects Quarterbred and Lan Franchi’s Cab Sav. She recently took part in the group show The Science Fair at Firstdraft, Sydney and is currently studying nursing at UTS.
*Supporting Organisations & Individuals
The Heart Library Project has been generously supported by the following organisations and individuals: *the Australian Government through the Australia Council (*Visual Arts Board) its arts funding and advisory body; dLux Media Arts; St. Vincent’s Campus Art Committee; Fraser Studios and Queen Street Studios; Xenian Living Light; UTS Gallery; UTS Creativity & Cognition Studios; Lizzie Muller & Kathy Cleland; Campbelltown Arts Centre; MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland; Lisa Colley and The Arts & Health Foundation; The Royal Institution Australia (RiAus); Bill & George Studio, Redfern; Naomi Derrick; Hosannah Heinrich; Bec Dean; Julianne Campbell; Khahien Hyunh and; Sam James.
Exhibition Dates
Royal Institution, Australia (RiAus), Adelaide, Australia, October 9th – Dec, 24th, 2009 Inaugural group exhibition, curated by Linda Cooper including works by David Haines & Joyce Hinterding, and John Tonkin.
‘Mirror States’ group show, Campbelltown Art Centre, New South Wales, Australia, 2008 Curated by Lizzie Muller and Kathy Cleland
‘Mirror States’ group show, MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland, New Zealand, 2008 Curated by Lizzie Muller and Kathy Cleland
UTS Gallery “Enfoldings & Disclosures” exhibition, March 11-April 11, 2008 with Sculptures and works on paper by Lisa Jones
The Living Room Project, artist residency, 2007 With Caitlin Newton-Broad, Sheila Ghelan and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, Performance Space. This was the residency during which Caitlin and I researched and prototyped the experience-map concept.
Acknowledgements
The Heart Library Project would like to acknowledge the assistance of the UTS Creativity and Cognition Studios, particularly Deborah Turnbull, Mike Leggett and Ernest Edmonds, as well as NEC, Xenian and Apple. The installation was developed as part of the Performance Space Residency Program, 2007 and with New Work Grant from the Visual Arts Board. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The Heart Library Project
The Heart Library Project is an interactive art exhibition designed for presentation in hospitals and health care settings. Participants use emotionally-mediated changes in their heart-rate patterning to influence the colour of a video mirror-image of themselves, projected on the ceiling above them.
The project invites visitors to spend some time observing and reflecting on interactions between their heart, nervous system and mental/emotional focus via sounds and visuals that respond to subtle changes in heart rhythm.
After their interaction with the interactive video image, participants are invited to contribute a response to the work in the form of a hand-drawn experience map and recorded interviews – these contributions constitute ‘The Heart Library’ – a celebration and reflection of the body as a living experience, imbued with feelings, motivations, history and imagination…
Where a traditional artwork has the capacity to solicit an emotional response in the viewer, in George Khut’s The Heart Library Project – you the viewer – through your emotions have the capacity to influence the appearance of the artwork itself. The Heart Library Project celebrates the human body as a felt experience – a body informed by life experiences, worldly relations, and personal motivations.
[download St. Vincent's Hospital programme notes here…]
Background
Biofeedback training refers to processes by which people can learn to sense, and subsequently influence, subtle aspects of their physiology via some form of electronically controlled display. Electronic sensors record otherwise imperceptible changes in the subject’s body such as brainwaves, heart rate or muscle tension and the information extracted is used to control changes in some form of visual, auditory or tactile feedback. Subjects can then use this feed back to sense, and eventually influence, the processes being measured through an ongoing course of act ion, sensation, reflection and experimentation.
Biofeedback training is presently used in the treatment of a wide variety of health problems, from muscle rehabilitation to stress-related conditions. Biofeedback training’s growing use is representative of a broader trend towards the incorporation of evidence-based behavioral-medicine approaches in conventional Western medicine.
The use of bio-electric sensing technologies in art dates back to the early sixties with Alvin Lucier’s seminal 1964 performance Music for 5010 Performer and David Rosenboom’s extensive body of work exploring brainwave based music. More recent examples include Char Davis’ Osmose and Ephemere installations along with works by such artists as Ulrike Gabrielle, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, and Mariko Mori.
My work with biofeedback has centred on the potential of body-focussed interactions as catalysts for personal insight and aesthetic appreciation. Implicit within the experience of biofeedback is a more holistic approach to physiology and its relationship to subjective experience and social context – the body is not simply a passive receiver of care and stimulus, but an active agent endowed with a sense of curiosity, playfulness and complex, often competing, motivations.
The Heart Library Project uses heart rate biofeedback to exp lore psychologically mediated changes in heart rate patterning. Changes in heart rate pattern control the texture, colour and sound of the interactive artwork. Contrary to popular misconception – a healthy heart rate exhibits a pattern variation known as heart rate variability (HRV). People interacting with these works often ask me if they ‘are ok?’ – as if my intention with this work was to provide some form of expert diagnosis or therapeutic intervention – to which I reply that what’s more important here is their capacity to form their own in sights and understandings. The work celebrates the body for the person that it is – not simply as a collection of problems and demands, but as a bearer of memories, yearnings and potentials. Through my collaboration with Caitlin Newton – Broad I’ve been working to intensify this aspect of the work done by t he audiences, through the collection and representation of participant experiences in the form of illustrated maps and video interviews and am keen to present these works in hospital and health promotion settings, as a form of interactive, arts-in-health.
George Poonkhin Khut, 2008
Accompanying George Khut’s interactive artwork is an invitation for visitors to take part in and ‘record’ a description of their body, its senses, memories, hot spots and phantoms.
George and I have spent time together, on a research project in 2007, considering how his biofeedback-driven work might be placed in a health care setting, an obvious landing place for an artwork responding to heart rate and breath pattern s. We wondered, what ways could we engage people passing through a hospital, [visitors, patients, staff) to take time out for an uncanny art -health experience? We wondered how would people understand the work if they could record their own experience through an object of reflection?
As part of this research we spoke to people working in hospitals and in somatic therapy. Following our conversations and George’s own close interest in the experiments of artist Lygia Clark we arrived at a simple format a recording station with a table, art tools and a ‘body map’ at which people could spend as much or as little time as they liked, describing what happened to their bodies.
The “body map” – like a generic medical androgen – is ready to be filled in, rubbed out, expanded. In our pilot work, this invitation resulted in a series of extraordinary figures, expanding our appreciation of the complex sensations our bodies carry, affirming the childlike pleasure of representing ourselves as rich territory, beyond the language of medical diagnosis.
Caitlin Newton-Broad, 2008
Production Credits
George Poonkhin Khut: Artwork concept, interaction design and sound
David Morris-Oliveros: ‘Kikura’ data visualisation engine, and technical support
Caitlin Newton-Broad: Original concept development and prototyping
Greg Turner (Interaction Consortium): Max-MSP data analysis and fuzzy mapping tools
Jason McSweeney: Biofeedback data analysis and signal processing
Biographies
George Poonkhin Khut is an artist-researcher working in the area of interactive media in an interdisciplinary arts/health context. Working from the notion of the art exhibition as public research laboratory, George’s interactive works, as developed from his doctoral research, focus on the use of biofeedback and physiologically responsive audio-visual systems as tools for sensing and re -imagining our experience of our selves in relation to our body and its processes. George has exhibited throughout Australia, Britain, South-East and China, and has been the recipient of several grants from the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Tasmania . Recent works include Drawing Breath, Cardiomorphologies v.1 with John Tonkin and Cardiomorphologies v.2 with Lizzie Muller and Greg Turner.
Greg Turner is a Sydney-based interaction designer and computer scientist who specialises in creativity support. His Ph.D. research was concerned with the development of new technology and methodology to support the creation of interactive art, and now he makes art systems for artists, and web sites for people with great ideas.
David Morris-Oliveros is a software engineer with extensive experience in video game and graphic programming. He has worked on several game titles for Playstation3 and Nintendo Wii . His love of visuals and music has lead him to produce real-time audio-visual demo programs.
Caitlin Newton-Broad is a producer and colla borative artist making work grounded in performance, place, community and new media. She has worked as a direc tor, dramaturg, tertiary teacher, project manager and writer in Australia and internati onally. Cait lin joined Performance Space, Syd ney as an associate director in late 2005 working with the performance and development programs. Caitlin Newton-Broad has been assisted by Naomi Derrick for The Heart Library Project’s Open Studios. Naomi is an emerging artist who has be en involved in the artist-run projects Quarterbred and Lan Franchi’s Cab Sav. She recently took part in the group show The Science Fair at Firstdraft, Sydney and is currently studying nursing at UTS.
*Supporting Organisations & Individuals
The Heart Library Project has been generously supported by the following organisations and individuals: *the Australian Government through the Australia Council (*Visual Arts Board) its arts funding and advisory body; dLux Media Arts; St. Vincent’s Campus Art Committee; Fraser Studios and Queen Street Studios; Xenian Living Light; UTS Gallery; UTS Creativity & Cognition Studios; Lizzie Muller & Kathy Cleland; Campbelltown Arts Centre; MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland; Lisa Colley and The Arts & Health Foundation; The Royal Institution Australia (RiAus); Bill & George Studio, Redfern; Naomi Derrick; Hosannah Heinrich; Bec Dean; Julianne Campbell; Khahien Hyunh and; Sam James.
Exhibition Dates
Royal Institution, Australia (RiAus), Adelaide, Australia, October 9th – Dec, 24th, 2009
Inaugural group exhibition, curated by Linda Cooper including works by David Haines & Joyce Hinterding, and John Tonkin.
St. Vincent’s Public Hospital, Darlinghurst, Australia, July 7th-19th, 2009
Presented by dLux Media Arts and St. Vincent’s Campus Art Committee*
‘Mirror States’ group show, Campbelltown Art Centre, New South Wales, Australia, 2008
Curated by Lizzie Muller and Kathy Cleland
‘Mirror States’ group show, MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland, New Zealand, 2008
Curated by Lizzie Muller and Kathy Cleland
UTS Gallery “Enfoldings & Disclosures” exhibition, March 11-April 11, 2008
with Sculptures and works on paper by Lisa Jones
The Living Room Project, artist residency, 2007
With Caitlin Newton-Broad, Sheila Ghelan and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, Performance Space. This was the residency during which Caitlin and I researched and prototyped the experience-map concept.
Acknowledgements
The Heart Library Project would like to acknowledge the assistance of the UTS Creativity and Cognition Studios, particularly Deborah Turnbull, Mike Leggett and Ernest Edmonds, as well as NEC, Xenian and Apple. The installation was developed as part of the Performance Space Residency Program, 2007 and with New Work Grant from the Visual Arts Board. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.