![[OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice](https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/15-104/f2018/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/stop-banner.png)
This project by Refik Anadol Studio caught my eye because it’s so beautiful and haunting—it really looks like something from a sci-fi movie. In reality, it’s a visualization of brain wave activity of participants who were asked to recall specific childhood memories. These memories weren’t mentioned; I’m really curious what they were. Even without that information though, the project still gives off a really nostalgic feeling.
I didn’t really understand the technical details behind the visualization, but the designer(s) seemed to have taken EEG data and input it into algorithms for 3d structures. While the concept behind that is really neat, I feel like the actual structures created would be very subjective based on the algorithm used, and I wish there was more context about the how one was translated into the other. I feel like this type of visualization has a lot of potential in research and education; I’d love to see a more concrete approach used to describe brain activity—for example, what different emotions look like, brain activity mapped to height of data points, etc. However, I do still think the end result of this project is really beautiful and innovative on its own.