GMU:Home Made Bioelectronics/Marah Doleh

Emot;on

Music and architecture have been a great influence on each other. Many architects have been influenced by music, and so did musicians as they were inspired and driven by the architectural context that dwelled them. Due to various acoustic phenomena, music does not sound the same inside different buildings, influencing the musician when composing. Meanwhile, architecture was created around music and developed spatial-acoustical criteria to contain the music within it, with emphasis on the acoustical and emotional outcome that could be achieved. Therefore, the impact on music and architecture could be seen as a closed-loop impact on many levels; inspiring, composing/ designing, and experiencing.

Looking through the connection between these two distant fields, it may seem to be a direct and strong connection since they both share the same structure and principles: rhythm, harmony, hierarchy, texture, proportion, etc. Nevertheless, beyond this obvious connection, there seem to be a major intangible connection; emotions. Both fields evoke various emotions in the receiver. These emotional experiences target and affect the receiver (from behavior to creation).

CONCEPT

In this project, I plan to create an interactive installation that reflects this relationship between architectural space and music. While putting an emphasis on the emotional aspect of this experience. The installation will have a musical instrument, VR glasses, and HR sensor. The participater is is allowed to play any music he/she wants and to change the music they are playing whenever the well through the experience. The interaction starts after the participator starts playing and an emotional change is detected. This will trigger an audio-reactive environment to appear. The interactive environment will keep changing with respect to the emotional change during the musical performance, which will (probably) in return lead to affect the emotion of the participator. By this participator is influenced by music, changing his emotions, influencing the virtual space, followed by another emotional change, changing the music, ect.. This closed feedback loop is an embodiment of architecture, music, and emotion relationship.

TECHNICAL ASPECT

This installation will be divided into three main parts; emotion detector (HR sensor+arduino+python), music (piano or any other instrument), and audio-reactive environment (touchdesigner viewed by VR glasses).

AESTHETICAL ASPECT

Although the program that will be used and the general vision of the visual outcome of this interaction is predetermined; an interactive architectural space that is changed by emotions and music. The design is not yet clear, and will be worked on during this semester in the Touchdesigner course I am currently taking.

List of readings and references:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvbThD835m0
• https://github.com/lbugnon/emoHR
• https://github.com/FarhatBuet14/Heart-Rate-Monitoring-with-Emotion-Detection-using-PPG-GSR-Sensors
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1clagERAiR4
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-020-09576-0
• https://www.thinkmind.org/articles/etelemed_2016_7_40_40093.pdf
• https://www.scitepress.org/papers/2015/52411/52411.pdf
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342075389_Development_of_ECG_sensor_using_arduino_uno_and_e-health_sensor_platform_mood_detection_from_heartbeat
• https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11941354_44