Enactive Mandala: Audio-visualizing Brain Waves

We are exploring the design and implementation of artificial expressions,kinetic audio-visual representations of real-time physiological data whichreflect emotional and cognitive state. In this work we demonstrate a prototype,the Enactive Mandala, which maps real-time EEG signals to modulate ambientmusic and animated visual music. The design draws inspiration from the visualmusic of the Whitney brothers as well as traditional meditative practices.Transparent real-time audio-visual feedback ofbrainwave qualities supports intuitive insight into the connection betweenthoughts and physiological states. Our method is constructive: by linkingphysiology with an dynamic a/v display, and embedding the human-machine systemin the social contexts that arise in real-time play, we hope to seed new, andas yet unknown forms, of non-verbal communication, or ``artificialexpressions''.