15 Jul Curiosity co-founder wins award at Hack the Brain 2016 with technology developed in collaboration with Curiosity

15 July 2016

https://cognovo.eu/news/htb2016.php

An interdisciplinary team led by Curiosity co-founder Diego Maranan has won the top award at Hack the Brain 2016 hackathon at the Waag Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The event took place over three days from 24 to 26 June 2016.

Asking the question of what a self-administered, technology-mediated, therapeutic modality might look like in the feature, Team Bisensorial presented a speculative but functional proof-of-concept prototype where tactile and auditory stimuli are used in conjunction with an EEG device to calm or excite users. The prototype was initially based on Diego’s CogNovo project Haplós, a torso-length piece of wearable technology composed of a series of small vibratory motors that run up and down either side of the user’s spine to create tactile stimulus patterns. These patterns were paired with composed musical fragments as both inputs and outputs of the genetic algorithm. Haplós is based on technology that was developed as part of a collaboration with Curiosity. 

Team Bisensorial was composed of Diego, speculative designer Agi Haines,  computational neuroscientist Jack McKay Fletcher, UK-based film composer Sean Clarke, Utrecht-based fashion designer Kim Jansen, and science communicator Ricardo Mutuberria. The prototype was modelled by artist Esther Levigne.

Hack the Brain 2016 was organised by the Waag Society and by Total Active Media, in partnership with other arts and science organizations and institutions. For more information, please visit https://cognovo.eu/news/htb2016.php.