We live in a society where everything seems to move faster and faster. New technology and IT speed up processes of production and communication. The aim of the new technology is to support us in our everyday life. Yet, people in the western world suffer from exhaustion, anxiety and other syndromes related to stress, due to a high-speed lifestyle.

Western society is also a competitive environment, which affects both our professional and private sphere. When it comes to the traditional concept of competing in games, the person who is producing the most adrenaline and is the most active one comes out as the winner.

In Brainball the common concept of competition is twisted. Here the winner will be the person who exceeds in passivity and relaxation. Brainbal can be seen as an interface for the mental state of the two players.

One of the central issues in the Smart Studio is to explore how the development of new technology correlates with our cultural ideological and structural paradigm. In the initial part of the Brainball project, we started off with three conceptual preconditions; to create something with a twisted concept, to make a comment on modern life style without moralising and to find new ways of applying new technology in different situations. In this working process, our aim was to find a way to produce a piece in which the very use of the technology would make a comment on the highspeed society. We also found it challenging to try to use an already existing technology in a new context, far from the original purpose.

The preconditions of this specific task, which were put into practice in the full blown version of Brainball, naturally correspond to the attitude of the Smart Studio as a whole. In the studio’s day-to-day activity, we apply a critical perspective on technology. One of the central issues in our work is to explore how the development of new technology correlates with our cultural ideological and structural paradigm. The interdisciplinary approach characterizes our work, of which Brainball is an example.

Brainball uses an “off the shelf” biometrics-system from IBVA systems, for the input of the players’ brain waves. These signals are analyzed and interpreted by a Macromedia Director application running on an Apple G4 computer. The Director application then sends serial output to an API step motor controller, which in turn controls a linear unit. The unit is mounted below a table surface and a magnet is fixed on the unit’s carriage. The ball is placed on the table and is immediately attracted by the magnet below the surface. As the linear unit’s carriage moves, the ball moves with it. The buttons are connected to inputs on the API step motor controller to control the Director application.