For the past week, NuVu has been infused with some of the most diverse creative people who are at NuVu coaching two exciting studios, Viral Video and Mind Music. We are thrilled to have Raghava KK (World-renowned contemporary artist, TED 2010), Jeff Marx (Tony-award winning musical composer/lyricist) and Adam Steinberg (Songwriter/Musician/Producer/Engineer) all under our studio roof, guiding the students through a collaborative process of creating brainwave-infused original musical compositions and viral videos.

Viral Video Studio

NuVu coaches Jeff Marx and Raghava KK talk about their collaboration with NuVu students.

Brainstorm about viral videos on the internet.

Max creates internet celebrity cartoons for the visual component of the video.
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Today was an exciting day at the studio. The studio was filled with robots roaming around the concrete floors and climbing up glass walls! There were also plenty of interesting experiments to share from the past weeks that de-bunked or at least put into question many commonplace assumptions! It was Friday Presentation/Review Day, and the students had plenty of interesting findings to share with the audience of their work from the past two studios (The Quantified Self and Sense, Think. Act).

Pre-review, trouble-shoot pow-wow

Catch Me-bot, or I’ll spray you with silly string!

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The Quantified Self community began in San Francisco by people who were interested in self knowledge through self-tracking. They also shared a keen interest in gathering and sharing this knowledge and experiences with others. The community has spread to other cities across the globe, with monthly meet-ups for people to share data they are tracking about their body and personal investigations and research into their bodies, minds, and selves. People’s inquiry stretches from personal genetics to ways to digitize and track information, from how to self-diagnose to how to self-experiment with data and statistics.

Michael Nagle, head of the Boston community of The Quantified Self, has been at NuVu the past two weeks coaching a design studio called “The Quantified Self” where students have been doing different QS style experiments. This past Wednesday, The Boston Quantified Self Meetup was held at NuVu, and in addition to presentations made by QS members, NuVu students presented their work from the studio, including topics from trying polyphasic sleeping and measuring the effects with the Zeo to measuring social interaction in costumes ranging from Cosmo-magaazine-attractive to wheelchair-bound to seeing the effects of texting while driving. A couple of Zeo team members were in the house at the QS meetup and donated a Zeo Mobile to the Polyphased group to assist in their experiment (Thank you Zeo!) As Michael said, “Their (NuVu students) enthusiasm for self-experimentation is what inspired the idea of doing a session devoted to getting people experimenting. I hope it rubs off on us.” Read the rest of this entry »

In the “Codes of the Brain” studio last week, students Liam Brady and Noah Jallos-Prufer created the iMat, an interactive game/art piece made using an EEG headset, one Kinect motion-tracker and a common projector. As Liam and Noah described, the iMat “directly relates to both one’s mind and body, delivering a fully dynamic experience.” The iMat is controlled by an easy-to-use interface and includes 3 different playable modes with no “max players” limitation.

Below are excerpts from Liam’s and Noah’s blog. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past few weeks, we have been dissecting sheep brains, hacking EEG headsets, capturing tons of sleeping data through the Zeo, capturing movement and dance, designing interactive art projects for people with synesthesia.

This past December, NuVu students attended and volunteered at the INK Conference in Jaipur, India and piloted an Android smartphone educational app they developed in cooperation with Sesame Workshop for children living in slums and other low-cost neighborhoods around India. NuVu alumni Tess Anderson kept an ongoing blog during her travels and talks about her experience as part of this India Workshop.

Inspiring INK

by Tess Anderson
12/07/11

Being at INK I was so inspired and had so much to say about everything that I felt as if no words would describe the way I was feeling…It was an overflow of amazement, inspiration and determination. I was amazed at how people like Babar started his own school at age 8 with kids in his backyard. I was inspired by people like Aisha who was brave enough to talk in front of the world about how she is dying. I was determined to make changes in the world like John Hardy has with his green school. The INK conference made me want to do more with my life. It opened my eyes to realizing how much is out there in the world and the impact people can have on the world. As a child, I always thought that when people said they were trying to “save the world” they were just kidding or pretending to be a big shot. But, after listening to such powerfully inspirational men and women, I have started to grasp the understanding of what it actually means to “save the world”.

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After an unexpected canceled flight in the afternoon, we re-prepared to head to Jaipur in the evening. The plane headed to Jaipur from Delhi was a propeller-type with a small on-board crew. After a short hour-long flight (and two days of travel), we had finally arrived in the Red City! INK Reps greeted us at the airport, and we departed for the Royal Orchid Hotel, the residence for many of the INK volunteers, attendees and fellows. We were received warmly by the hotel and INK personnel who placed ceremonial red vermillion on our foreheads at the entrance to the hotel.

Image caption: Jaipur bound

Image caption: At Delhi Airport waiting for flight to Jaipur

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We had our Fall 2011 exhibit last weekend. It was a great opportunity for the students to show off their creations. This is also our first exhibit in the new space. We were not sure how we would run the exhibit but we settled on a gallery style with a few demonstrations. Most of the students spent all of saturday and sunday finishing off their projects and preparing food for the visitors. You can also see the crazy robotic chandelier hung in the back. The arms are supposed to move independently responding to data coming from different sensors.

We just arrived in Delhi after a day long trip across the waters. No lack of bright smiles, despite the long journey and 1am arrival in the morning. Short stop and we’re off to Jaipur tomorrow for INK 2011, themed “The Power of the Journey.”

Departing Boston Logan Airport @4pm

Sunrise Layover in Paris @6am

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