Listen to My Heartbeat
Ib Vindbjerg, one of my teacher training mentors, produced this Interactive sound installation Listen to My Heartbeat. Visitors’ heart beat measurements trigger plucking of strings on instruments and droning sound emerges.
I also recommend his book, The First Book I Wish I’d Had at Art College
We found common ground during my training in 2007-8, I enjoyed our conversations. Must reach out again and discuss this work in relation to my research. Perhaps explore teaching people about processes inside the body by way of interactive art and representations of biological processes.
Above: Excerpts from The First Book I Wish I’d Had at Art College, discussing Cezanne’s use of form and colour.
Real-time Scanning and the ‘Haptic’ Dimension
The use of ‘live’ scanning of medical imagery for the triggering of sound events for Senses of Tumour would be ideal (as demonstrated in my mock-up). If this is not possible, then using the patient’s own medical imaging scans for the 'footage' as tested in the prototype (to then be made into a personalised standalone App for Smartphones) . In addition I’d be interested to add the ‘haptic’ dimension, players can have a 3D print of 'healed' tissue resulting from the game; before and after.
Came across this 3D printed lungs project. Summary, by Sinem Tas, researcher in Lung Bioengineering and Regeneration group (Dr. Darcy Wagner’s lab) at Lund University, Sweden:
‘In this project, we 3D print the simple structure of a tube with our new alginate material together with the lung cells. We use the patient’s own cells for 3D printing. This construct can mimic our airways, so it can be used to study how the disease progresses. Currently, we are looking at how to print complex structures, which are close to an actual lung. Hopefully one day, we will be able to print the whole lung to save the lives of patients.’
Sensations of the body
I’ll end this post with a couple of quotes about sensations of the body, by James Elkins in The Object Stares Back (I do love a quote):
Elkins (1996, p136) states that ‘when I am aware that the body is in continuous deformation, I am thinking of a general condition of being alive, a sensual monitoring of the body, a care or anxiety about its health and status.’
In talking about ‘powerful empathetic effects’ (1996, 144). He states that nothing is more affecting than images of the body, puzzling, purely incomprehensible… waiting for a key to unlock its obscurity. (Elkins, 1996, p144)
He goes on to explore how we respond as if we can smell objects in paintings, or ‘feel’ the heat from a Naples Wall. We see body's everywhere, when we look at distorted figures, we 'feel' the discomfort. If someone is irritated in a room, we ‘feel’ it.
Is this at a genetic level?