Research logs

purgatory EDIT uses the Emotiv EPOC X, a portable EEG kit widely used in academic and scientific research to read brainwave activity as emotions. It reads emotional states as well as specific eye and facial expressions, and its Brain Control Interface broadcasts these as OSC signals on a secure channel.

The proprietary software, developed by the purgatory EDIT team on top of a licensed VDMX5, receives the broadcast signal and translates those emotional mind-states into usable parameters linked to the intensity map values.

The brainware reads a user's semi-conscious mind-state and outputs it as abstract emotions represented as six metrics. These performance metrics are the six parameters that generate the methodology.

Focus

A measure of fixed attention to one specific task. Measures the depth of attention as well as the frequency that attention switches between tasks. A high level of task switching indicates poor focus and distraction.

Engagement

Experienced as alertness and the conscious direction of attention towards task-relevant stimuli. Measures the level of immersion in the moment — a mixture of attention and concentration, contrasting with boredom.

Interest

The degree of attraction or aversion to the current stimuli, environment or activity. Low interest indicates a strong aversion to the task, high interest a strong affinity with it.

Excitement

Physiological arousal, characterised by activation in the sympathetic nervous system resulting in a range of physiological responses. Reflects short-term changes over periods as short as several seconds.

Stress

A measure of comfort with the current challenge. High stress can result from an inability to complete a difficult task, feeling overwhelmed, and fearing negative consequences for failing to satisfy the task requirements.

Relaxation

A measure of an ability to switch off and recover from intense concentration. Trained meditators can score extremely high relaxation scores.

The performance metric definitions are Emotiv’s, as documented for the EPOC X.

The software generates an ‘algorithm-based real-time stitching’ of a string of videos drawn from the archive. Through it and the EPOC X brainware, a participant’s emotional activity controls the real-time juxtaposition of a pre-compiled and curated string of videos — their sequencing, their intensities and the specific types of video, as well as playback speed, fluctuations, and designed glitches.

Together the software and the EPOC X work as a fuzzy controller: they perform the visual semiotic analysis research and execute the artistic component of the project.

That the device is difficult to control with precision is not a limitation of the work — it is the material of it. It gives participants varying degrees of looseness and an ability to ‘play’ with the process. As they struggle for a degree of control, trying to will their subconscious into producing specific sequences, attempts to soothe or agitate their own minds often have unexpected results.

• Stress controls the intensity of videos: high stress sequences more peaceful clips, low stress sequences more violent ones.
• Interest, engagement and focus control sequencing in different ways, from switching the polarity of the intensity slider to shifting bin values and transition speeds.
• Squinting causes blurring; clenching the jaw temporarily pauses the sequence; blinking ruptures the war-and-peace binary altogether by toggling in advertisements and Kanye West music videos — another form of violence.

Every clip in the archive is graded on a fifteen-step scale running from Peace-05 to War-10. The full categorisation index — what each bin means and the criteria a clip is judged against — is published as a PDF.

Bin categorisation index (PDF, 2.7MB)