Unstable Empathy
2 players interactive installation, 2008
EEG reader, live processing, 5.1 multichannel audio
An Unstable Emphaty is a reactive environment constantly remediated in real-time by the mind activity of two players which are constantly forced to negotiate their emphatic state.
It’s a collaborative game in which the meanings of cooperation, entangling and collective consciusness are directly perceived on the physiological level.
At the beginning of the game two participants are selected from the audience; then some electroencephalographic (EEG) electrodes are being mounted on the head of two players. Their Alpha brainwave (8-10 cicles/second) is measured in amplitude in order to assess the mental state and the level of relax and concentration of the two participants, while the players’ brain activity is rendered in real time as visuals on the big screen behind them and as spatialized sounds surrounding the environment.
The two players quickly realize that the narration of the imagery is directly driven by their brain activity. They also realize they can continue the journey only forcing themselves in an emphatic relation: shifting between chaos and organization, they constantly have to renegotiate their own mind states in order to let the narration going on, in an unceasing research of a shared balance.
conceived and designed by Kinotek and Lanvideosource