Bio:Sync

An Informed Participatory Interface for Audience Dynamics and Audiovisual Content Co-creation using Mobile PPG and EEG

The BioSync interface presented in this paper merges the paradigms of heart-rate and brain-wave into one mobile unit which is scalable for large audience real-time applications. The goal of BioSync is to provide a hybrid interface, which uses audience biometric responses for audience participation techniques and methods. To provide an affordable and scalable solution, BioSync collects the user’s heart rate via mobile device pulse oximetry and the EEG data via Bluetooth communication with the off-the-shelf MindWave Mobile hardware. Various interfaces have been designed and implemented in the development of audience participation techniques and systems. In the design and concept of BioSync, we first summarize recent interface research for audience participation within the NIME-related context, followed by the outline of the BioSync methodology and interface design. We then present a technique for dynamic tempo control based on the audience biometric responses and an early prototype of a mobile dual-channel pulse oximetry and EEG bi-directional interface for iOS device (BioSync). Finally, we present discussions and ideas for future applications, as well as plans for a series of experiments, which investigate if temporal parameters of an audience’s physiological metrics encourage crowd synchronization during a live event or performance, a characteristic, which we see as having great potential in the creation of future live musical, audiovisual and performance applications.

With Yuan-Yi Fan

NIME 2013 at KAIST, Korea
BioSync on app store
Special thanks to Johnny Liu (NeuroSky)