Lucid Touch
What is it?
Lucid Touch is a bioreactive sculpture that induces emotion by contagion through using an affective feedback loop to control the flow of a dream.
In dreams we are confronted with distorted entities from an emotional memory circuit. Fleeting experiences of a secret world. A flow of desire and mood that initiates emotion.
In Lucid Touch, through the sense of touch, bio-electrical arousal levels from the human body are altering the stream of a dream experience. The participant controls the mood of a simulated dream and the digital dreamer controls the participant's emotional state. There is an electrical connection, a primal biological feedback.
Using their hand, the participant touches the interface. This allows the non-intrusive detection of real-time biological data from the participant. This is done through skin conductance response (SCR), heart rate (ECG) and body temperature.
The real-time physiological information is presented to the participant in the form of a dream. The dream is simulated using images, animation, digital video and sound. The simulated dream is being influenced and controlled by the participant. The participant's psychophysiological state changes the mood of the dream. Their emotional / electrical energy controls video effects and sound. The imagery and sound presented to the participant will potentially have a direct influence on their mood. Hence, the feedback loop.
Influencing sound and motion is the most immediate feedback available to the participant. A secondary feedback is that the interface physically alternates between warmth/cold and vibration. This will provide the participant with an eerie experience of something alive in the machine. An entity with the ability to sense emotion. The more excited you become, the entity "warms" to you.
The participant can learn how to "play" Lucid Touch with their bio-state. Once the participant is aware of this, she/he can learn to control their own emotional state by lowering stress levels or relieving boredom by raising arousal levels.
Through the sense of touch, emotion will be experienced. Dream mood will be changed.
Audio-Visual Description
The dreams are told in layered audio-visuals. There is no dialogue in the dreams, so that Lucid Touch has the ability transcend language boundaries and to travel to non-English speaking countries. Research done into psychological aspects of colour and sound is used to convey specific emotive feelings.
Why do it?
Lucid Touch will enrich the experience of the participant. The participant is part of the interface and directs the flow of the dream. The dream will not change or advance without their bio-electrical input. The participant will learn to control moods by the use of touch.
Emotional states and mood have long been taken for granted. They are seen as something that exists, but not an important factor of life. Often people don't consciously think about controlling emotional states, they just experience them. An individuals mood can "rub off" on another person directly influencing their emotional state. Emotional states are an essential part of communication.
Inducing emotion by contagion is a phenomena that has been used in advertising and in cinema and happens constantly in everyday life. Utilising immediate bio-sensor data will give a more direct approach to mood control, allowing the participant to play with the mood of the dream, hence controlling their own mood.
Lucid Touch has involved a large amount of research, both practical and theoretical. This has included research into the scientific studies of dreams; online and lab dream collection; materials/haptics/ergonomics research for the final design of the interface, and psychological research into colour and sound. It also involved initial software development for the neural net and dream engine, and the use of a biomedical engineer to create the bio-sensors embedded in the interface.
The Future
Lucid Touch has the ability to expand and change as new dreams are collected. The data flow also has the ability to control different effects
Lucid Touchhas been exhibited in Adelaide, South Australia at the Experimental Art Foundation in July 2005 and in Vancouver, Canada at the New Forms Festival in September 2006.
Lynne Sanderson 2005-06