Biofeedback Music: Your Heart as a Drum Machine and Sweat as a Melody
Sat, Aug 09
|Gray Area Grand Theater
This workshop on biofeedback music offers an introduction to the theory and practice behind this innovative approach to utilizing physiological data to compose and perform music.
Time & Location
Aug 09, 2025, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Gray Area Grand Theater, 2665 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA
About the event
Participants will learn about live representation of biological data through video and sound, and develop an understanding of the challenges of this hybrid art-science practice. Then, they will build a small emotion biofeedback system using galvanic skin response (GSR). Students will process the data from the GSR device and map it to music/visual changes using Max/MSP. Participants may choose to work solo or in small groups of 2-3 people. The session will conclude with an open discussion of the participants’ experiences and results of the workshop; those willing to share their work will be offered an opportunity to present their biofeedback pieces.
Upon completion, attendees will have a basic understanding of the main concepts of biofeedback music and sonification techniques for their GSR devices that they can also apply to working with other types of biofeedback data – sourced from heart rate (EKG), brain electrical response (EEG), or respiration frequency…