↩️ Return to portfolio home Nik Swift - New Media Portfolio
<aside> 💡 TL;DR:
I created a hybrid in-person + online installation, that visualizes a single or pair of heartbeats in real-time to promote mindfulness and human connection.
Made in TouchDesigner.
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2021 - South Bend, IN
Sole Creator
3 months
I began my MFA program after an extended period of isolation brought upon by the pandemic, during which I had built a personal mindfulness practice that has become a vital part of my life. I was interested in how our biological rhythms and sense of mindfulness are inherently connected, so I decided to explore that concept by creating Meditation Installation over the live-streaming medium I had grown so close with through Twitchwonku .
When I began graduate school, I wanted to explore how other biological rhythms can contribute to the same concepts, and how I might be able to create an in-person installation experience as those types of interactions started to become possible.
The process began when I bought sensors to explore the heartbeat as an alternative biological rhythm to the breath. I connected the sensors to Arduino and connected Arduino’s output into TouchDesigner. I tested the sensors, and incorporated those heartbeats into a visualization of the user’s silhouette and organic structure on-screen, a modified version of a network created by a member of the online TD community.
I also wanted to open up this experience to those outside of the in-person installation as well. I built some functionality for this experience to be livestreamed, so that a remote audience could log on and make their presence known either by clicking on the screen, or using chat to reveal their digital identity to those in-person.
Once the installation’s digital presence started to take form, I began to plan the installation details in conjunction with my school’s first-year MFA show - “New Faces”. This included a box for the sensors+circuit to be housed in, with handprints and a QR code to lead the user to the online experience.
Finally, the title appeared: “Heartbeat here now” , calling back to Ram Dass’ seminal book “Be Here Now”. I created a kinetic typography title to be displayed when the installation space is empty, and proceeded to prepare for the full installation leading up to the show.
This was my first in-person installation, and with it came many challenges as such.
Projection mount: The gallery that this show was to be held, had no clear ability to mount a projector into the ceiling. Luckily, I found some grommets which I had to measure, and create a custom rig from which to hang the projector mount, so the projection angle could be sharp enough to prevent human shadows disrupting the experience.