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Conductar: Moogfest

April 23, 2014

Conductar: Moogfest

Virtual Reality is becoming more than a concept dreamt up by cyber punk visionaries, it is in fact becoming Reality with the introduction of ultra portable interactive devices such as Google Glass, 3D immersive headsets for gamers and even GPS devices overlaying a route to your destination over a 2D landscape powered by massive data sets stored on tiny chips.

All of these emerging technologies utilize highly detailed virtual environments and overlay your reality over it, so it’s not surprising that music should become the medium overlaid over such a virtual environment. All it needed was someone to make it happen, which is where Conductar comes in. The development team created a version specially for Moogfest 2014.

I picked up a NeuroSky biosensors, iPhone and a set of earphones from their booth at Moogfest 2014 and off I went into the streets of Asheville.

The headset basically measures electrical activity in the brain, with one contact touching the forehead and another on a sensor that is clipped to one ear lobe. It sounds involved but it’s actually quite inconspicuous and comfortable. The headset connects via bluetooth to the mobile device and the audio is delivered through a pair of earphones.

After the Conductar app is launched, and the devices are paired, you see a virtual representation of your location along with a window that shows your brain state. The two bars for Meditative and Attentive fluctuated quite a bit at first, but after a few minutes I was able to make one or the other move in the direction I wanted quite easily.

The music that plays is directly influenced by these two states. You can’t actually play a specific tune just by thinking of it, yet, but there are definite changes in the overall feel of the music depending on your brain state. In theory you can change it quite dramatically depending on how well you can go from one state to the other but I spent more in the Attentive state than the other due primarily to the limited time I had to check out the device.

There is also GPS data inputted into the application showing the location of other users as well as the routes taken by those before you. Arrows on the ground and birdlike objects flying through the streets can be followed quite easily as you can see them through the virtual buildings. I noticed a representation of a lighting bolt which, when approached turned into a huge treelike object that towered high into the sky. Not sure what that was but it was pretty cool.

The number of applications for a GPS and brainwave powered audio-visual application are infinite, especially as processing power and immersive display technology continues to improve, but for now Conductar gives a surprisingly powerful impression of things to come.

Download the free app here.