Mindful MVMT (Thesis): Interactive Mindfulness Meditation using  Attention-Regulation Process via Xbox Kinect

Sean Tianihad is an audio engineer and electronic music producer from Donegal. With the majority of his collective works in the electronic music published under the artist project ‘Rafii’, Sean also works on outside productions for commercial artists based in London and Los Angeles. His recent studies in MMT has expanded his interest in programming and interactive technologies. The Mindful MVMT system will act as a tool for practicing mindfulness via the attention-regulation process (ARP) - which in ARP the two mechanisms of Detection and Feedback allow the technology (in this case XBox Kinect) to detect the users’ interaction without interrupting the users’ state, and give soft feedback to stimulate the users’ meta-awareness, allowing for effortless reflection, and achieving a deeper state of mindfulness. The Kinect will track the users’ hand movement in an up/down motion (following the timing of two moving dots on-screen) to generate sound and visuals in response to the movement. The hand movement is coupled with breathing (up for inhale down for exhale) inspired by Yoga and Thai Chi style breathing techniques.

The entire system was built using Max MSP/Jitter, Synapse, and an Xbox Kinect.

 

Link to Showcase: https://shwca.se/mindfulmvmt

 

Full Thesis featured below.