Shower Me with Affection-ECG Heart-rate Interactive Installation

The forearm of the audicen is connected to ECG electronic pads, which is interacted with the movement of the sculpture. When the heartbeat is triggered by the sexually charged content of film, the movement of the sculpture changes according to the different mode of heartbeat from the audience. The heartbeat of the audience, the film and the interactive sculpture becomes an intimate feedback loop. The work explores the tension between the very personal matters of the human body and its relation to public space. The motion of the work becomes the extension of body, which visualise the bodily changes we usually ignore or neglect. With the data visualization from the moving and shaking sculpture, this work certainly increases the sensitivity to feelings, which is mostly suppressed and ignored in public space.

Using a heart rate sensor creates a more fundamental way of detecting people’s bodily responses, referring, as mentioned above, to Wynter’s notion of “non-symbolic representation”. Non-symbolic representation is a language beyond linguistic representation, underneath the skin, form, cultural signification, even genetically coded features, which points to something more fundamental than deliberate significative or linguistic communications.