NOW
Interactive installation
NOW focuses on redefining time with respect to us, our body and the surrounding it exists in. We each have a unique understanding of time through our body which defines us and our practices. NOW explores this relativity between the body and time to making it unique and specific to each individual being.
The project focuses on interpreting the time of a body. The heart is a vital organ that pumps blood and helps circulate it to all the parts of the body. Heart is a unique organ whose function and size varies with each person. Each heartbeat produced is a signature that can be recorded and used as an identity for each individual. The pace of the heart is also directly proportional to the body’s functionality in terms of mental stress and physical activity. The space, and its temperature also affects how the body functions. If time were to be linked to the functioning of the heart, it would make it specific to the that body and that space and that moment. This specificity is what the projects strives to explore and achieve.
The project develops into a system of reading, measuring, and translating the heartbeats into units of time. ‘Now’ draws a bridge between art and technology and translates the body’s activities into a unique expression of time. Microprocessors along with digital sensors are used to collaborate the readings of the heartbeat and categorize them into units that express a display of time. The collaboration of various mediums expresses the sophistication of the systems that make our body function in the way it does. Time here is made to be specific and personal. The uniqueness in time exists in nature and the project is a beginning to understanding these connections and relationships that time makes as it progresses.
Materials used: heartbeat sensor, water, food pigment, coconut oil, glass, transparent nylon pipes, dc water pump, raspberry pi, arduino uno, motor relay module, nep pixel LED strip, LED matrix display, electrical wires, stainless steel, LED lights
Displayed at Walkin Studios, Bengaluru
2019
PARTS OF THE INSTALLATION
An observer in the space interacts with the installation by placing the index finger into a
rubber socket containing the heartbeat sensor. The sensor would record the heartbeat and
communicate the readings to a system of micro-controllers which included an Arduino-Uno
and a Raspberry-Pi. These controllers kept time in the form of beats and communicated these
values as digital data to the neo-pixel LED strips and the red LED matrix display.
As each heartbeat is recorded, the LED's on the neo-pixel LED strip would light up one by one. At the count of one pulse (7 heartbeats) the LED's on the second line of neo-pixel strips would turn on At the count of one cycle (7 beats x 7 pulses 49 beats), one led on the red matrix LED display would light up. The observer in the space could therefore read the time that was recorded by the installation.
The amplified sound of the heartbeat
With the recording of each heartbeat by the sensor, the Raspberry-Pi played a recording of the sound of an actual heartbeat. This sounds was synchronized to the pace of the observer’s heartbeat and was amplified with the use of a sub-woofer placed on the floor. A low bass vibration was produced each time a heartbeat was detected This effect could be experienced and felt by other observers in the space.
Interactions with the installation
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