EMOMENTUM AN EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE LINKING HEART AND ENVIRONMENT
RAINBOW SERPENT FESTIVAL 25th Jan 2003
EMOMENTUM is a practical work by Olaf Meyer that implements and explores some of Dan Winter's tools and concepts and investigates internal biorhythms sustained collectively in a rave environment.
PROJECT OUTLINE
Dan Winter's Heart Tuner software and hardware will be used to read the musical key signature of two simultaneous human heart beats in real-time. The real-time signal generated by the Heart Tuner will be read by the Visual Synth software engine: when both hearts align to the same musical key signature, a light & video & sound will be triggered on the main dance floor. The Visual Synth software has been interfaced to the Heart Tuner via the midi output of the HEARTWAVES VALENTINE.
The crowd on the main dance floor of an outdoor rave party at around 2-4 am collectively achieve and sustain high amounts of euphoric energy, especially an open air event amongst trees and stars. Obviously the environment; installation art, performance, lighting and music all influence the intense and sustained bliss experienced at this time.
At a time where the party on the main dance floor is at full swing, two people will be selected and asked if their heartbeats may be measured using the Heart Tuner.
They will be seated with a geometric structure called a Genesa Crystal (once said to echo the molecular form at the heart of all living things). They are connected to the Heart Tuner / Visual Synth - biorhythm to multimedia interface and asked to simply observe the people around them. The people around them are in turn observing them. All are still being subjected to the ongoing music and lightshow amongst the stars and trees.
When both people achieve the same frequency within their hearts, a light will turn on as well as a midi note activated. This indicates that the two people are both experiencing a unified internal biorhythm. Dan Winter suggests that this is a measure of empathy. The romantic twist to this is that because everyone on the dancefloor is experiencing bliss collectively, the two people whose emotion is being measured are actually representing the empathy felt through everybody on the dance floor.
Empathy: The power of projecting ones personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation. German: einfühlung - ein in + fühlung feeling. THE CONCICE OXFORD DICTIONARY
Most people know and can feel this collective bliss on a peaking dance floor with or without the use of this machine. But we will for the first time be able to see our collective bliss effect our environment by way of:
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PDF FLOW CHART DIAGRAM HERE (210k)
The décor (Genesa crystal & light) will become interactive with the DJ while at the same time being directly responsive to the audience. When the DJ sees that the light on top of the structure is on, he also knows that the sound of a Tibetan healing bowl is also being sent to his mixer for him to use at his leisure.
The sound of the healing bowl is a harmonically inclusive sound and may actually help maintain the bliss felt by the people being measured. The sound, video images and lighting rhythms will be programmed to help sustain a unified rhythm within their hearts.
During this time the party continues as normal, but some aspects of our environment will be actually initiated by phase-locked biorhythms (unified and sustained heart harmonics)
This experiment will indicate the extent to which we are able sustain unified heart harmonics at an outdoor rave party, and the extent to which the audio/visual environment is able to effect us internally.
Some questions to be asked:
FLOW CHART DIAGRAM IN PDF FORMAT HERE
EMOMENTUM AN EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE LINKING HEART AND ENVIRONMENT
RAINBOW SERPENT FESTIVAL 25th Jan 2003
DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OVERVIEW - BUILDING AND LOCATING THE GENESA CRYSTAL AND STAND TO HOUSE THE ECG INTERFACE.
By the time I got all the materials together and drove to the Rainbow Serpent Festival site on private land about 20 minutes out of Arrarat Victoria, there was not much time to build the installation so the construction commenced in the hot summer night and throughout the next day.
The intended location for the structure was in the middle of the dance floor, but as the floor came together, and the speaker system was installed it became apparent that the middle of the floor would be too crowded so the structure was moved over to the edge of the floor.
Once the genesa crystal was built and the light connected to it, it was a surprise to notice that the level of light-strobing would allow you to see many interesting geometric properties of the structure.
The painted light globe started to smoke and burn so it was replaced with a frosted globe which lit up the golden glitter very nicely.
The dimmer circuit designed and built by Andrew Baxter caused the light to flicker gently as it was dimming which caused the structure to shimmer. Because the genesa crystal was lit from the inside, the contrasting shadows and light bathed glitter created a ribbon effect along the structures edges. Rather than housing the computer within the seating structure, the computers com port was extended 30 meters to the structure from the video control console on stage.
The heart tuner (JJ Engineering. Isolated computer interface i-330 c2 mini 22797 Holger CT NE poulsbo, WA 98370) collected two channels of ECG (electro cardio graph) data and processed it as shown in the diagram below. The second-order FFT and amplitude values generated by the HeartTuner were sampled by the Heartwaves Valentine once every 800 ms. The 2nd order FFT values were translated to a range of midi notes by Marc Kroeks's Heart Waves Valentine program. The power of the heart beat waveform (RMS squared) was translated into midi velocity values. The power of the waveform was calculated dynamically from a history of 60 readings to determine the fluctuating ceiling and floor values. These fluctuations were typically caused by comparatively week skin resistance between subjects and unwanted readings caused by muscle activity. The heartbeat waveform is a direct reading of the electrical fluctuations of the heart in micro Volts (uV).
The x axis (1/Hz) of the 2nd order FFT was divided into 16 midi notes. Two heart frequencies were measured simultaneously. The data derived from each heart was output to an independent midi channel. The two midi notes and their respective velocities were then compared, if the midi notes were equal (indicating both ECGs contained the the same frequency) a software switch would turn on. When the notes were different the software switch would turn off. This software switch indicated when the two heart frequencies were equal and when they were not. Visual Synth was run on the same computer as the Heart Tuner and Hearwaves Valentine and was used to compare the midi notes & velocity values and triggered the light, sound and video.
Windows 98 was the operating system used as it provides multitasking and for time critical application to run with direct and guaranteed access to processor time. The precision timing was needed to run the data signal to the light dimmer circuit. Windows 98 was unstable and prone to crashes which limited the functionality. This did not occur under windows XP/2000 but the dimmer circuit could not be controlled using these operating systems.
The midi velocity from each channel was compared and the highest midi velocity was used to control the brightness of the light.
RESULTS
It was about 3:00 am of the 26-01-03 when I connected Paul Williams & Fiona Hogan to the heart tuner. The ECG data was recorded and can be downloaded here, it can be opened and run through the HeartTuner software Download the installer here. There was obviously a clean ECG signal and the heart tuner software was producing data which could be understood by the Heartwaves Valentine program and translated to midi notes and velocity.
It was important for the subjects to sit facing themselves during the test as this help them to experience the moment together in a more intimate way.
Surprisingly the data produced by the 2nd order fft was similar on both channels. This is easy to see if you connect the Heartwaves Valentine program to the HeartTuner software via the 'Ei_data.txt' file that is updated by the HeartTuner every second. Run the rainbowlog.txt file in the HeartTuner to read the data in the graphical displays. You can see that the midi notes produced are always the smae on both channels. Please refere to the HeartTuner software documentation if this is unclear.
At one stage it seems evident that there was some noise, this may have been generated by slight movement in the wrists or maybe by (less likely though), interference from the 50000 kW sound system. Never the less, because of the sustained and similar readings once the light came on, it stayed on!
After 35 seconds the HeartTuner software stopped receiving or collecting data and was not updating the Ei_data.txt file. Marc's Heartwaves Valentine continued to translate the same Ei_data.txt file to midi values and the light's intensity became constant.
--VIDEO CLIPS GO HERE--
Comparing the log file generated by HeartTuner from the ECGs of Paul Williams & Fiona at the rainbow serpent festival ( 26-01-03, 3:00 am) at the climax of the party on the main dance floor with the log file generated from Erron and Michelle and between Olaf Meyer and Anna Jacobs ( 28-01-03, 6:30 pm). Paul Williams & Fiona sustained a consistent, unified frequency between them compared to the fluctuating data generated by the other two pairs of ECGs. Even after almost half an hour of recording on 25-01-03 and 28-02-03 there was never a single time that the frequencies were in unity for as long as Paul Williams' & Fiona's. Their internal biorhythms were able to dynamically phase lock to a unified frequency. Affected either by the music and/or base vibrations or able to somehow sense and respond to eachothers internal biorhythms.
Addressing the Original Questions:
Music is able to fuse the internal biorhythms (heart beat frequencies) of multiple people. People can produce very similar frequencies within their heartbeat and easily sustain them on a dance floor with live music, video and lighting effects.
Ultimately our heart beat is our own. So what we feel is a fusion of ourselves and our environment.
We all interact and affect eachother and our environment. We should not have to use an empathy controlled light to remind us of this but sometimes our mind need to be silenced
Is a rave party a totally passive engagement? To what extent are we interacting with our entertainers?
Any live performance is interactive. We are all sharing the same space. The performer is affected by the crowd just as the crowd is affected by the performer.
Does it really matter when we are all experiencing a shared space?
In these situations we are like emotional transmitter receivers.
End of document. 15/01/03 Olaf Meyer.
