Eye Resonator

2014/15

Eye Resonator is an interactive installation that engages viewers by responding to their eye movements. It captures individuals’ responses during interaction and present them accordingly with multisensory simulation of various flocking behaviours well-known in nature (bird flock, fish shoals, insect and plankton swarm). Each encounter with the system is unique as it reacts to the voluntary and involuntary responses of the viewer creating a tension between being in control and being controlled.  The installation explores the borderline of human perception and aspects of self-awareness by means of aesthetic pleasure and boredom.

Eye Resonator utilises eye-tracking and real-time data visualisation technologies. It is a human-computer feedback system that upgrades its expectations towards viewers based on their performance of control.  The system utilises two interconnected algorithms, one that captures viewer’s arousal (based on the quality of eye movements and pupil dilation) and one for flocking or swarming   (boids) that continuously updates itself based on the values of the earlier algorithm. 

Swarming  is a multisensory feedback of the viewer’s eye movement and state of arousal. Inherently the swarm follow individual’s eye movements and constantly revise its relationship with the viewers by changing their level of control. Subsequently this results in a change of the audiovisual patterns of the swarms. Eye Resonator does not aim to mirror viewers’ effective states ( level of arousal) but to guide them towards a balanced state of control and subsequently to a relaxed state.

An overview of various swarming behaviors and level of control: 

BIRD FLOCK (white): Individuals have strong sense of control. 10/10

INSECT SWARM (red): Individuals need strong focus to control 3/10

FISH SHOAL (blue): Individuals need to focus to control 6/10

PLANKTON SWARM (green): Individuals’ experience is controlled 1/10

Future Fictions: Affective Recruiter, Boredom Machine and Self-Therapy

The Eye Resonator exhibition set visitors on a fictional journey of the future through the lens of three fictional scenarios. Each of the scenarios set the scene for an experience of self-reflection and encourages viewers to engage and take control within the presented multisensory environment.

In Self-Therapy the subject ( the viewer itself) is affected by psychological diseases that can only be assessed and cured by interacting with the Eye Resonator. This scenario is developed to draw attention to Eye Resonator’s main purpose which is to facilitate self-observation and  subsequently relaxing states.

In Affective Recruiter one imagined to be a job-seeker and that Eye Resonator assesses her suitability for the position requiring such attitudes. This resonates the  idea that Eye Resonator facilitate optimal experiences that  necessitates  strong capacity to focus and to empathise.

In the last scenario, one desires to purchase a Boredom Machine, a machine that subvert long-term established paradigms of home entertainment.  This scenario is inspired by the fact that Eye resonator, playing with basic dimensions of human behaviour, purposefully generates conditions of monotony and repetition.

This curatorial framework is developed in collaboration with Gabi Arrigoni. Read more about the development of the Future Fictions here

More about the project can be found here: eyeresonator.com