Post

Procedural Sky

Outline

“On a sunny day..” is an artwork fusing Virtual Reality, bio-signal data and real-time sound synthesis to explore the relationship of the body to our natural world. In this work the body directly affects the experienced environment as the bio-signals generated by the human autonomic system cause changes in the surrounding environment. The subject experiences being the centre of the universe which swirls around her at the behest of her vital signals. Her life force is projected out into the universe.

Sky Dome

The subject will be connected to various sensors before entering VR:

EEG (brain-wave sensor)
ECG (heart function sensor)
EMG (muscle sensor)
EDA (electrodermal activity)
Stretch sensor (chest inflation)

The subject will also receive data in the form of sound and light and also haptic excitement of the vagus nerve through the ear.

Each of the bio-signals will be mapped to an aspect of the system - possibly mediated by a deep learning neural network - so that as the subject’s physiological state alters the perceived environment will also be modified. The nature of the relationship between the captured bio-data and the experienced environment will be explored as the piece develops.

Sensory input will be threefold:

Oculus Rift VR (visual)
Noise cancelling headphones (auditory)
Haptic motor (touch)

Rig

Hardware

Oculus Rift VR headset
Senheiser Ambeo 3D audio headset
Bitalino
Arduino Feather WiFi

Software

Unity
Chuck
Arduino