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DEEP BRAIN
EMULATO
R




design brief - instruction manual in action close up of sculpture


medium: laser cut acrylic, cnc milled circuit copper board, arduino, adobe illustrator, programmable LEDS


Created for HYPER
MEAT at Grace Exhibition Space, this is an emulator of a deep brain simulator.

inspiration


the theme of hypermeat was electronic interfacing for the human body, how do can robots interact in symboiotic or parasitic ways with humands? I looked to real world examples of robots and humans being embedded through pacemakers and probes. One such fascinating use is the area of neuromodulation through the use of artifical electrical currents to treat severe epilepsy.

Deep Brain stimulation is a relatively new area of treatment for epilepsy. Neurostimulators are implanted in the anterior thalamus and current is generated regardless of seizure activity in order to  mitigate symptoms.

This piece puts you in the reverse place, you must stop the seizure in the robot as a human.



process


First created the initial sketches in procreate of a 3 frame animation, inspired by old medical illustrations. Retraced it in adobe illustrator and laser cut it onto seperate sheets of acrylic. Then programmed LEDs on arduino using the FastLED library and created 3 rows for each face. Afterwards I created the brain using illustrator and CNC milled cooper and used the arduino capacitive touch libarary to create the interactive portion of the brain. I mapped capacitive touch values to certain animations depending on the distance of the hand. Finally, the box was laser cut and engraved to provide easy access for the circuits.

users tap a portion of the brain and then trigger the stabilization (purple flashing) which then becomes white again.  

24–09–2024