Breathe, Float

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Overview

I collaborated with some ITP classmates on the installation design of an immersive meditation experience that incorporates breath rate haptic and audio feedback.

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Exhibition: ITP Winter Show 2020

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Inspiration

The drive of this project is a curiosity about deepening or texturing the meditative state, expanding the senses involved and creating an interactive synesthetic sanctuary. We were also interested in making this a social experience and exploring the synergy effect of group meditation, but we decided to first see how far we could get setting up a solo experience.

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Approach

• Rajshree had the initial vision of the project’s centerpiece: a hanging frame draped with feathers that lifts up and down above the participant as they breathe in and out
• Eden primarily contributed further iterations of a previous project of hers which consisted of a wearable chest strap that includes a stretch sensor and an Arduino to measure breathing rate
• MeeNa, who joined the team remotely from out of state, coded a p5.js sketch that could read in these sensor values and allow two participants to connect remotely over a server and attempt to sync up their breathing
• I helped to fabricate and develop the design of the hanging frame, created the circuit and code for the motor that would raise and lower the frame in response to the breath sensor data, and suggested and implemented the addition of immersive audio

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Process video:

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Outcome

The user wears a belt with a stretch sensor attached, measuring the user’s breath. As the stretch sensor moves with the expansion of the chest, its data is recorded and utilized to manipulate remote and physical objects. There are two variations on this output for our project:

PHYSICAL INSTALLATION: The stretch sensor allows breath to become a controller that manipulates physical phenomena. An installation of yarn pompoms is suspended from a frame and moves in reaction to the wearer’s inhalation and exhalation.

REMOTE/SERVER COMMUNICATION: Different people can wear breath sensors in different locations. Together, their breathing patterns create an output on p5. In our p5 sketch, the breathing is signified by a feather animation moving up and down. Both users' breathing patterns create this change collaboratively.

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Demo

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Detailed Writeup

Link to blog post