“Making the Human Heart a Medium for Social Interaction” presented by Khaorapapong

I see the human heart at the core of our physical, symbolic and emotive bodies – as a co-performative mechanism with the mind, bodies, technologies and our surroundings. This view had informed my art practice at a time when biofeedback technologies are becoming more domesticated and modifiable. Stetho-phone with pulse oximeter embedded in its handset is a biofeedback device created for Heart Lounge, a computer-mediated environment designed to construct the participant’s perceptual experience of the heart (internal) in a way that the changes of the environment (external) mirror the internal changes. Auditory and visual displays are the result of repetitive behaviour of the heart which is generated by the software and represented through a light projector and loudspeaker. These representations are not meant to mimic medical reports, but to offer participants introspection in a shared space. The “undressing” of the biobody in public view makes the embodiment of the heart possible and constitutes a new environment where a computational system reconnects an internal system with the mind itself; the heart becomes an interface of “mindbody” (Katherine Hayles). It gives rise to an inside-out experience that extends this “mindbody” to an external world.