Final Project Proposal

Form -
My project will consist of a constructed brain made with panty hose material and polyfil. It will be mounted onto a hat or head covering of some sort. Within the brain, there would be LEDs routed to the particular parts of the brain. There will be three main functions or sections of the brain that will light up, connected to three separate sensors. The first sensor will be a range sensor that will light up the parietal lobe of the brain which is associated with movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of stimuli. The second will be a pulse sensor that lights up the brain stem of my piece. The brain stem is often associated with vital life functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and blood pressure. The third and final piece will be a microphone or volume sensor closed to the mouth. This will light up the temporal lobe, which is associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech. This will be installed by having a set of pedestals around the person who is wearing the piece. This person will be blindfolded to block out the one perceptual idea of relation and perception. On these pedestals around the person, there will be noise making objects for the audience to interact with. The audience will also have the option to walk up close to the person and speak to them if they wished.

Here is a source that I got my information from for a more in depth description of the parts of the brain: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html

Content -
I want to work with the idea of connection. The definition of connection is 1) causal or logical relation or sequence, 2) contextual relation or association, 3) a relation of personal intimacy (family ties). Within this piece, I want to strip away the main perception of the world by removing the ability of sight. After this is taken away, a sort of hyper reality takes place, causing the person wearing the hat to look beyond visual clues as to the world around them and start contextualizing the world with the sensors that are placed within the brain piece. Sounds can be made around the person that could elevate their heartbeat, causing the brain stem to light up. People could come up close to these people, which not only would set off the lights of the parietal lobe, but also start beeping or making a noise with the closer the audience is to the viewer. And by hearing people's voices or ambient sounds, the participant will simultaneously light up the temporal lobe and begin to wonder what objects are around them. I want to develop a strange connection with the world that is often overlooked because of simple sight.

Method -
I will need to get smaller pedestals to hold the objects in a circular space around the person who will be wearing the piece. I will construct the brain out of panty hose and polyfil and lace LEDs of three different colors in clusters that symbolize their part of the brain. Then I will attach the rangefinder to the front of the brain, the pulse sensor will be a clip to put on your ear on the side of the brain, and and a volume sensor placed by the mouth of the subject or close to the rangefinder. I would hope that the audience would interact with this piece by going up to the pieces and making noise with the objects that the person in focus would then bring together a sense of what's going on in the space. I would encourage the audience to then come up to the blindfolded person with the piece, so as to set the rangefinder off and allow the person blindfolded to know that someone is coming closer to them, developing this connection. In turn, these noises and interactions will cause the change in heartbeat.

Materials -
 - panty hose
 - polyfil
 - rangefinder sensor
 - pulse sensor
 - voice sensor/microphone
 - LEDs - three different colors
 - arduino - possibly multiples
 - pedestals - 4 or 5 depending on layout
 - objects that create sound - not quite sure on what yet.

How is this art? -
I believe this is a positive concept because it asks or more like forces the viewer to reconsider the connections that they take advantage of in everyday life. What connections might be limited by comfort, which might be accelerated by actions (or noise), and how the person may feel about these interactions. It brings to light the connections that we make in everyday life and strangely subverts them because of the reliance on sight for confirmation. This could be also a technological consideration of the life  of a blind person and how they may make connections.