An artificial environment that enables users to interact with internet data with their mind through a brain-computer interface

1. Hybrid Worlds: Nano_Biotech + Art.
Parsons MFA DT program. Professors Victoria Vesna and
Siddhartha Ramakrishnan
datalife
Maxim Safioulline

2. abstract
The world where we live and our own bodies are a
product of physical laws that make this world stable
and connect its elements to each other. As we are
attempting to create unique worlds in cyberspace we
should start thinking about what sort of organizational
structure would enable those worlds to develop and
grown on their own.

3. abstract
When a person browses the Internet or plays a computer
game her body does not exist in that environment for
the observer from the inside - only her mind. She is
still connected to it with her body through an
interface and the feedback that she receives is
necessarily translated for our world. But what if those
layers where removed and a pure human mind would be
able to interact with an environment of pure data.

4. concept/topic
I propose an alternative approach to the creation of
interactive simulated environments - a re-thinking of
the basis and the laws upon which such environments are
created and a re-thinking of role, place and purpose of
a user/observer/participant in such environments.
I also propose an alternative approach to human-
computer interfaces, a systemic view of human-machine
combines and an exploration of the alternatives to mice
and keyboards that stem from this approach.

5. context
• Sims/MMORPG/Second Life - If we have a chance to
construct new environments on the web why do they
have to resemble the one where our bodies live?
• A-Life Art - if you’re constructing a new environment
why is a user not a part of it, just an onlooker?

6. proposal part 1:
Create an environment that reflects the larger system
where it exists: the cyber world - and is based on the
“energy = data” metaphor: things grow with abundance
of data and die because of lack of data and the shapes
of objects is determined by the types of data.
The objects in this environment will be able to
generate data-energy themselves and to affect each
other similarly to the way that living beings do.

7. proposal part 2:
Create a special object in this environment: the
participant - through which a person connected to
the computer with a brain-computer interface would
be able to interact with the environment.
The environment will provide feedback to the user by
changing the chemistry of the user’s brain through
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

8. questions for
exploration
• How to get user to interact with an artificial
simulated environment on a bio-chemical level?
• How our psyche is going to adapt to environments
that are so unfit for our bodies? A possibility of
exploration of mind-body connection and co-
dependence.
• Can humans live and interact with the environment
only by using their mind?

9. project under development
by Maxim Safioulline
for Connected Cat Media
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