PULse 03: HDVD Human Digital Video Device

PULse 03: HDVD January 2015. This work was shown at the launch of G+VERL (Games & Visual Effects Research Lab) at the University of Hertfordshire.

HDVD is an interactive video performance between the participant and the digital video image. Both the participant and the artwork share the same biorhythm during the interactive process where they communicate with each other. The internal values of the bodies’ physiological data in the form of heart beats per minute BPM are witnessed in real-time on the video screen. A resting heart rate enables one to control certain qualities of the video image and become both the instrument of play and the player – locked inside a real-time bio-feedback system. The analogy between a DVD player and the human body draws our attention to the way our bodies are also both the instrument of our emotions and a player of them in the actual/digital world. The choreography between biological matter and digital media breathes new life into an emerging ‘third space’ between these two self/other modalities creating a fluid metaphor of a hidden biological system controlling our external world and vice versa .

The desire to extend the materiality of the body and materialise the hidden world of experience through metaphor is understood as a portal to visualize aesthetic contemplation as a state of be[ing] in the world. Drawing on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work on ‘flow’ the artist makes analogies between his understanding of being in the ‘zone’ and be[ing] in the moment as an in[bodi]ed experience. By drawing on the concepts of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty he can help us to re-conceptualize the way we look at the world, not just with our mind but with our body as a way to re-configure ones sense of self through new media art. What happens to me/you when we interact and collaborate with real-time video performance and what impact do these interactions have on the way we feel?

Video Documentation of PULSe 03: HDVD at G+VERL

How It Works

The way HDVD works is to place a heart rate sensor on your finger which communicates with the computer wireless or non wireless in real time.

Both the heart rate sensor and an Arduino communicate with the computer through a software video programme called Isadora.

To 'Play' press the graphite start button which acts as a play button on a DVD player.

The screen shows you your real time heart rate (beats per minute) in the bottom right heart icon at the bottom of the image. This icon also beats to the exact rythm of your BPM in real time. There are instructions on the top and bottom of the screen telling you how to interact with the video. Depending on your BPM you can use your body like a DVD player stopping/starting/pausing the video. The aim is to prevent the water from overflowing.

You need to keep your heart rate below 70- BPM to stop the video and prevent the glass from filling up. Once the BPM is above 70 the video speeds up slowly. The numbers in the centre of the glass also beat to the real time rythm of your heart beat moving in and out as the blood flows.

AS the BMP is rising above 70+ the glass gradually begins to fill until it overflows and a notice comes up telling you to try again.

If you can keep your BPM below 70- the numbers change to red to let you know your in the ZONE and the speed gradually slows down until it stops.

If you can keep your BPM below 70- for 10 seconds then you are in the ZONE. Be[ing] in the zone is a philosophical approach that I see as analagous to being In[bodied] to the video in the 'here and now' (in the moment).