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Choice Simplification Device (CSD)

 

Choose.

You are free.

You are free to choose.

There’s a world of choice drawn just for you…

Choose.

Choose:

Choose!

How are the ethico-political dimensions of choice being captured by current models of consumption? Facing the neoliberal machinery, techno-capitalism organises itself around the intangible, creating services that act as intermediaries. Within this logic, choice is equated to freedom. More choice = More freedom. CSD is a service which aims to exacerbate the act of choosing to its ad absurdum limits.

CSD is a mobile game that presents the user with a service to aid with  multiple choices to satisfy three vital issues:

I am hungry

I am thirsty

I have an existential vacuum

For each issue, the system provides a curated set of options that seem to simplify the act of choosing. However, as the decision begins to narrow, more and more options appear: more choice, more freedom. As the time ends, the user is asked to confirm their current choice. This gives two distinct results:

Game over: “What do you really need?”;

Well done: “You have made a free choice” (Even if the last choice is far away from what they really wanted).

Leveraging the tensions between need/desire/choice, CSD utilises a ‘quizz’ aesthetic to break down the absurdities of techno-capitalist consumption practices tied to the multiplicity of choice. If advertisement claims that we are free because we can choose, and we choose because we consume: where does the choice to not consume fall within this logic?

How important choosing is?

Which choices are really important?

 

Choice Simplification Device is an ongoing collaboration between performance artist Camila Mozzini and Miguel Ortiz.

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Emotion in Motion

The MuSE team have been closely involved with the current exhibition in the Science Gallery, Dublin, the theme of which is ‘Music & The Body’.

You are invited to measure your emotions as a part of an on-going experiment with music, emotion and physiology. Does your body like music you thought you hated?

Using heart-rate monitors and skin conductance, the experiment reads your physical response to a selection of music samples.

Continue reading Emotion in Motion

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Soundscape Park

soundscapepark

 

The Soundscape Park project is a new exciting and unique installation in the newly built Bridge Community Garden on the Albertbridge Road, Belfast.

Permanent loudspeakers are hidden among the plants and at height.  Sensors are also installed to detect movement and allow visitor interaction.  Ambientsoundscapes will be playing all around the garden, continually changing throughout the day.  Each visit will be different.

I designed and implemented the software that runs the Soundscape Park system.

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I’ll Be On The Water

I’ll Be On The Water is an exercise in navigating the time and space of something passed. It attempts to present a physical, tangible method of exposing (or burying) a memory; and allows the performer to immerse him/herself in the moments which manifest them visually and aurally. The piece reflects the fragmented and sometimes invasive nature of an experience that can not be either recalled quite clearly enough, nor entirely forgotten.

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”  – David Foster Wallace

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Sonic Minds

SonicMinds

SonicMinds is a collaborative project between Francisco Marques-Teixeira {MuArts collective and Neurobios, Portugal}; Miguel Ortiz {Goldsmiths, London, UK}, Francisca Rocha Gonçalves {University of Porto, Portugal} and Horácio Tomé-Marques {MuArts collective, ESMAE – Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espetáculo and University of Porto, Portugal}, that proposes the real-time sonification of the brain phenomena based on raw data and neuro-feedback theories and methodologies.

Continue reading Sonic Minds

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BioSuite/Unsound

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‘Biosuite’ is a collaborative project bringing together the disciplines of film production, music composition, environmental art, technology, and engineering to research ‘future cinema’ and the ever-increasing demand for audience interactivity & immersion in the audiovisual experience.

For this project, the MuSE team at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, developed a system for real time tracking of audience members emotional response based on heart beats and Galvanic Skin Response. This allowed for the the Short film Unsound to have dynamic real time score and different scenes to be selected during the screening.

You can read more about the project here and see the film’s trailer here.