Mettāmatics
An interactive artwork that responds to changes in heart rate variability that can be altered using ‘loving kindness’ meditation.
Slow interaction, Being as a way of doing. Non-action as interaction.
Collaboration with Callum Howard.
Mettāmatics is a series of interactive artworks exploring ways that heart rate patterns can be influenced by feelings of compassion, gratitude and equanimity.
During their interaction with the work, participants wear a pulse-sensor on their finger-tip or ear lobe, and watch at a realtime visualisation of changes in their heart-rate patterning, accompanied by guided meditation and electronic soundscape that responds to changes in heart rate, and heart rate variability.
They interact with the work, using their breathing and the quality of their attention as a way to subtly alter the their heart rate variability patterning. After a few minutes, they see and hear how these shifts in breath and being, alter the appearance and sound of the artwork.
Participants learn to sense and perceive these feelings as ways of being that are clearly embodied – in an objectively measurable way – within our physiology – akin to the different physical postures and coordinated movements we engage in everyday life, and a quality of being and orientation-to-others that can be voluntarily applied – outside the context of this art experience.
Mettāmatics requires its to audience slow down. Because the works in the Mettāmatics series measure very low frequency changes in heart rate, the interaction requires a lot more time and attention than is usual for interactive artworks. Many of the wave-like variations in heart rate that are measured in Mattāmatics, take place over several minutes.
The 10-minute guided meditation that accompanies the interaction, is designed to support participants to ‘enter into the work’ and the slower timeframes it works with.
Exhibition dates
2020
Exhibited as part of TEI Arts Track Exhibition, Group exhibition presented as part of TEI 2020 the 14th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, University of Sydney, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 9-12 February.
2019
Exhibited as part of Contemplative Interactions (solo exhibition), DADAA Gallery, in the 2019 Fremantle Biennale, Freemantle, Western Australia, 20 October – 9 September.
2017
Exhibited as part of Sounding The Future, group exhibition curated by Gail Priest, UTS Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 1 August—22 September.
Acknowledgements
Mettāmatics has been supported by UNSW Sydney, The UNSW Interactive Media Lab, and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. Special thanks to Gail Priest, James Brown and Callum Howard for their support and involvement in this project.
Production Credits
George Khut: Interaction concept, art direction, interactive sound design
Callum Howard: data visualisation, systems automation
Angelo Fraietta: pulse sensing hardware and software
Tuan Vu: heart rate variability analysis software
Maggie Slattery: prerecorded text development, development (2009)
James Brown: Sound design and sound-samples
Gail Priest: Sound design and sound-samples
