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Dimensions: 8’x 8’
Material: wood, masonite, bondo, EEG headset, arduino board, LED lights, insulation fabric
Hexahedron is a meditation training space that uses visual biofeedback to guide the participant into a more meditative state of mind. It is an 8 ft by 8ft enclosed space with a chair suspended from the ceiling. Inside the room, the walls are lined with white pleated fabric, and that fabric is back lit with white light. On the ceiling there is a headset hanging on a hook. The participant enters the room, closes the door, places the headset on their head and sits in the chair. Once settled the participant practices a simple mediation by following the inhale and exhale of the breath.
The headset in the space is an EEG, or Electroencephalogram which measures the brainwaves of the participant. This headset is connected to an arduino board installed in the space. This small computer changed the color of the LED lights in the room depending on the participants dominant brainwave patterns. The color of the lights indicate how “meditative” the participant’s mind is. Red is least meditative and the lights change going up the color scale as the participant becomes more meditative. This would continue as orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, violet, then at the most meditative state, the lights in the space shut off, rewarding the participant with a lack of stimulus for the most meditative state being achieved.
This piece contained a lot of meaning for me. At one level it was a way to offer others a possibility of a transcendental experience, something that has greatly affected me in my past.
In another aspect, this piece was challenged the divisions I saw in the world, particularly the division between art and design, as well as spirituality and science. I believe these divisions can be blurred and blended into something that can fit all categories.
Additionally Hexahedron was also my own “solution” to the uneasiness and uncertainty that I felt in my own personal meditation practice. As many do when they start practicing meditation, I questioned whether I was “doing it right”. By removing the outside world and creating a device to gently indicate where my mind was at, my hope was to build a confidence in distinguishing differences in states of mind. Ironically this only started to happen when embraced the world rather than removing myself from it.