The Heart Library Project
The Heart Library Project as exhibited in Enfoldings & Disclosures exhibition at UTS Gallery, March 11 - April 11, 2008. Camera work by Sam James.
An arts-in-health project with Caitlin Newton-Broad, David Morris-Oliveros and Greg Turner.
The Heart Library Project is a two-part participatory art project developed by George Khut with performance maker and community artist Caitlin Newton-Broad, and interaction software designers Greg Turner and David Morris-Oliveros. Originally conceived for presentation in a hospital setting, the work was first piloted at UTS Gallery, Sydney in March-April 2008, and as part of the upcoming group exhibition “Mirror States” curated by Lizzie Muller and Kathy Cleland at Campbelltown Arts Centre in South Western Sydney in July 2008.
Conceived as an informal community research space and multi-media library, and using the interactive (biofeedback) experience as a starting point, The Heart Library Project invites audiences to share their experiences and reflections through video, illustration and conversation. The resulting body of drawings, conversations and writings would then be developed by George and Caitlin into a multimedia exhibition located in an area adjacent to the interactive (biofeedback) exhibition space.
The work is experienced in two distinct stages: a sensor-driven biofeedback interaction, followed by a process of reflection in the form of a facilitated map-drawing process…
Installation view from inside The Heart Library Project: Biofeedback Mirror. Photo by David Morris-Oliveros.
The sensor-driven component of the project immerses participants in an uncanny zone between inner and outer worlds: a wireless heart-rate sensor tracks emotionally-mediated changes in the participants heart rate patterning. Normally hidden body signals are transformed into a hypnotic color and sound experience, drawing participants into a that is both private and public at the same time. Although people interact with the work on an individual basis - the experience is fundamentally social. Through the act of both participation and witnessing, the work facilitates far-ranging discussions around theories and experiences of body-mind interaction, and health care/self care practices.
Participants who have interacted with sensor-driven component of the work are invited to articulate their experience of the work through a process of map-making and recorded interview. The resulting drawings and video interviews are then exhibited as a continually evolving collection of drawn and spoken responses.
Body-experience maps created by visitors, from ‘The Living Room Project’ research workshop at Performance Space, 2007. Photos by Julia Charles and Heidrun Lohr.
The “body map”, like a generic acupuncture medical diagram, is ready to be filled in, rubbed out, and expanded. In our pilot work, this invitation resulted in a series of extraordinary bodies, expanding our appreciation of the complex of sensations our bodies carry, affirming the childlike pleasure of representing ourselves as rich territory, beyond the language of medical diagnosis. - Caitlin Newton-Broad
George Khut is presently working towards a presentation of The Heart Library Project at St. Vincent’s Public Hospital, in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia, in early 2009. Other potential site for such interactive installations could include hospital ‘quiet-spaces’, rehabilitation centres, snoezelen facilities, pain management clinics and general health promotion events.
Hospitals and health care organizations interested in hosting The Heart Library Project should contact George Khut for further information.