Mind Cupola: research statement
The Conceptual Draft of the Mind Cupola ((c) Zics 2008)
The MIND CUPOLA is a successful PhD research project begun in the University of Wales and hosted in its final year at Transtechnology Research at the University of Plymouth. It was undertaken over four years which resulted from a unique collaboration between an established media artists, Dr Brigita Zics, and researchers including Dr Phil Culverhouse a computer scientist whose research in robotics and natural object recognition and Dr Martha Blassnigg a media philosopher and media anthropologist, both at Plymouth. It represents a great achievement in collaborative research at the intersection of Art, Science and Technology, and its future development as a therapeutic device to ameliorate the effects of ageing on memory are now being actively pursued as a new research project involving many disciplines at UoP.
The Mind Cupola Affective Environment ( (c) Zics 2008)
While currently there is much debate about, and interest in, collaborations between artists and scientists (in which Zics has already achieved international recognition) this research project is significantly different in that draws considerably on neuroscience and the philosophical implication of Artificial Intelligence research and the philosophy of memory. The realisation of the project coincides with the consolidation of a small group of researchers who are primarily located in the Arts and Humanities who have been working with scientists from a number of disciplines in the University of Plymouth and with outside agencies.
This group, Transtechnology Research, is specifically concerned to broaden transciplinarity through the introduction of historiography and philosophy to cutting edge research in the hard sciences – particularly as they may concern and impact upon human well-being. The MIND CUPOLA represents this group’s key enterprise to develop robust methodologies for collaborative research involving quite distinct methods and practices for future projects.The MIND CUPOLA was developed as a practice based doctoral research project which was augmented by a substantial new thinking about the nature of technologically facilitated interaction which also resulted in a thesis. This thesis proposed a basis for an aesthetics of interaction which was quite distinct from usability or functionality, and called upon thinking about what it means to be a fully functioning (conscious) human in the twenty-first century. In doing so the scientific, philosophical and technological input to the project was returned to the community through insights into how a number of intransigent problems concerning machine vision, memory and aesthetic interaction. Some of these were immediately carried forward into innovative large scale collaborative proposals which are now being pursued by senior researchers.
The Mind Cupola’s Feedback Loop ( (c) Zics 2008)
For this reason we have established this project since we wished to draw attention to the research and pedagogic value of the Humanities in the current vogue for Art/Science collaborations, and in particular the value added this can yield to the work of the University. In the case of the MIND CUPOLA project for example, we found that by bringing the Humanities to the fore in this research team the practical applications and enterprise opportunities of an astonishing art-work are more immediately apparent and has provoked new strands of thinking across a number of disciplines. The success of the MIND CUPOLA is in part due to its striking design and its intriguing public presence. It is a large scale interactive media art work that the user connects with through a large cupola equipped with sensors and feedback devices that is suspended above their head. Through a specially designed software which visualises the outputs it produces a unique experience guiding it’s user to a state of mental ‘equilibrium’. This is achieved by the user’s physical and emotional interaction with both the immersive graphical visualisation of their own mental state and the interactive cupola hardware. This hardware and programming is the high-end technological contribution from robotics and natural object recognition group at the University of Plymouth and tracks facial and head motion along with constant feedback readings of brain temperature which can be raised or lowered with heaters and fans.
Users in the Mind Cupola and the Affective Visualisation (c) Zics 2008)
According to the head movements and other outputs the visualisation displays fractal-like particles which the spectator can transform into text messages which describe elements of their current state as well as advising them of actions to take to lead them into the pure state of ‘equilibrium’. The ‘equilibrium’ state is achieved when the user is fully immersed into the aesthetic interaction of the MIND CUPOLA, creating a conscious state of mind and bodily interaction. Images of this project can be found: www.zics.eu, http://www.trans-techresearch.net/researchers/brigitta-zics
The MIND CUPOLA was beta tested and evaluated as part of the PhD process by Peter Wiebel. The Director of the world famous ZKM an international authority for forty years in the field of Interactivity It was subsequently publicly displayed and further tested and, as a consequence attracted media attention. In addition, within the University it stimulated further development particularly with the inclusion of eye tracking, and in this mode promises further applications in art and sciences. The MIND CUPOLA has already gained an international reputation and Zics has been invited to major festivals and scientific conferences in Vienna, Create 2009, the British Computer Society in London as well as ISEA 2009, in Belfast.
The future impacts of this research are:
1. Raising the awareness of creative aspects of Science through the Arts and Humanities. The MIND CUPOLA is intended to engage a wider public with emerging scientific, philosophical and technological issues in instructive, engaging and memorable ways. New insights into the practical and philosophical meaning of technology are achieved through the participation of the user at the deepest level of cognitive experience.
2. An Affective Design Solution for Ageing Mind:
Current research at the Transtechnology Research includes applications of aesthetic interaction for health and well-being (in collaboration with John Vines).
3. An Interdisciplinary education model for Integrating Science, Art and the Humanities:
Reflection on the research methods of the MIND CUPOLA have already fed into teaching practices in which students explore interdisciplinary theories, conceptions and applications used at this project and apply them to their own creative and scientific projects.