I began developing Vital
Threads Biofeedback Apparel in 2007 to open design and fashion to dynamic new forms of
self awareness, personal expression and interpersonal communication. Typically, we are
all vastly limited in our expressive outlet to engage a collective
awareness. Vital Threads Biofeedback Apparel gives the wearer the
freedom to express his or her personal vantage on a moment by moment
basis.
Update: Vote
here to help me get a panel slot at the South by South West (SXSW)
festival!!
Update: I will debut three prototype pieces from my Vital Threads
collection at dorkbot
nyc on May 7, 2008.
Truth Wristband
A wearable device that dynamically reflects your
psycho-emotional response to the world, promoting
internal states to be externalized and made into interactive forms
of expression. Measuring the
galvanic skin response (a marker of emotional arousal commonly
used in lie detector tests), this
device can help the wearer know when he/she is getting closer to the
truth. The baseline or "average truth" is displayed via an RGB
spectrum on the side LEDs. When instantaneous skin conductance
exceeds the average, letters of the word truth light up to display
the extent of the "relative truth".
Below is a video of my brother, Ian, wearing the Truth Wristband while
I ask him some questions to see what sorts of things get his Truth
meter going. Note that it takes 1-2 seconds for the psychodynamic
response to be expressed in the skin response.
(get
the latest flash player)
Everyone's Truth responds in
different situations reflecting their unique psychology. Many designs
for the future. Truth rings that retail for under $10, games - like a
new version of "truth or dare", and personal interaction tools for web
chatting or communicating with your robot pets.
Are you an investor, electrical
engineer, lawyer? Do you Want to work with me to take the Truth to the
next level?
Heart-on Shirt
Wearable device that measures your heart beat and externalizes it as
pulses of light. Sensors read the
wearer's ECG
and produces flashes of light in time with his/her own heart. Wearing
the shirt gives this intense feeling of life and rhythm, yet reminding
you of your electrical and mechanical roots. Truly amazing how much
the heart responds to social interaction and yet is almost entirely
ignored as it meters our life. Looking to integrate with more
dynamic visual displays (like at
enlighted.com)
and to better integrate the concept with conductive thread and sewn in
electronics like at
sparkfun.com.
First
version of the wearable ECG was conceived as part of the
bioluminance
project and has had a few appearances in some of my
costumes and various other venues. I
hope to find the right collaboration to make an installation
version that will let people explore the power of the heart.
The heart-on shirt works by
first amplifying the heart signal (amp shown below designed by my
friend Stephan Marguet; many other
designs online). As an exercise in analog circuitry (and
because at the time I didn't know much about programmable chips) I
build the heartbeat detection circuit out of all analog components
(right bottom). The circuitry basically takes in the ECG (red),
uses 4 diodes as a
bridge
rectifier to adjust for flipped polarity of the leads (blue),
and a peak
detector (green) with an RC "leak" to ground that
automatically scales the threshold for different amplitudes of the
ECG signal on different users. When the rectified (blue) trace
reaches the threshold (green) trace, an output light pulse is
generated.
Thinking Cap
Extending from
my background in neuroscience, I created this device to measure
brain activity from the wearer's scalp
EEG
and project changes in neuronal synchrony on modular light arrays.
There are around 100 billion neurons in the brain (more than the
number of stars in the clear night sky). To prevent total chaos,
the brain uses rhythmic syncopation at several timescales so that
local networks of neurons can synchronize with one another and
with distant networks to orchestrate elaborate behaviors.
The rhythmic synchrony of
electrical impulses in the brain can be recorded as microvolt
oscillations on the scalp (white trace). The thinking cap
calculates the components of the signal in different frequencies
(color plot) and projects alpha (8-12Hz), beta (14-30Hz) and gamma (30-50Hz)
oscillations from the right and left hemispheres of the brain on
6 RGB light modules.
As the wearer
closes his/her eyes and enters a meditative state, large alpha
rhythms turn the rear
light modules red, while highly focused attention increases beta
and gamma oscillations and
turns the frontal light modules red.
The Thinking Cap measures
bilateral brain activity from electrodes located underneath the
black elastic band. Currently I'm using the openeeg
modeeg amplifier (which can be purchased at
sparkfun) on loan from my friend
Artur Luczak
until I build a smaller amp.
The two amplified signals are
digitized in two programmable chips (microchip dspic30F3013), which
essentially perform an
FFT
to separate signals into alpha, beta and gamma frequency ranges. As
the wearer's brainwaves change, the amplitude of the alpha, beta and
gamma oscillations are translated into a spectrum of RGB light using
pulse
width modulation on the six RGB LEDs projecting on the inside of
the hat.
