Abstract

Anxiety, I acknowledge you. For a long time, I thought the manifestations of my anxiety, mentally, emotionally and physically, were my way of life. As I became more self aware, I realized that when I attempted to describe my anxiety to people, they would often respond with "huh, that's pretty serious." And so, I decided to acknowledge what my body has gone through because of my anxiety in three parts. Part I: "My Anxious Shell", an interactive video sculpture embodying how anxiety manifests in my body. Anxiety manifests differently in different bodies, this is how it manifests in mine. Part II: we.AR.anxious, bespoke pieces of AR wearables from jewelry to keychains that aim to help with anxiety. A calming animation is seen in AR on the wearables using the phone. Part III: Using the Hololens, I experimented with AR to visualize a person's heartbeat.

Research

Part I: "My Anxious Shell" "My Anxious Shell" is an interactive video sculpture embodying how anxiety manifests in my body. I hope to show this interactive piece in mental health themed exhibitions and spaces. As you approach the sculpture, it goes into panic mode. Opening the door of the sculpture, organs in distress are revealed. I used multiple sensors, Arduino and serial communication with Unity to achieve this reveal effect. The animations of the heart getting stabbed, lungs trapped in plastic wrap and a ring like object squeezing the stomach portray how anxiety feels in my body. I created these animations in Cinema4D and used Unity as the platform to make it interactive. Sometimes, putting a hand on my heart helps, not just physically but also metaphorically getting support from people around me. Hence, I wanted to mimic this interaction by using LEAP motion to allow people interacting with the sculpture to hover their hands over the heart, calming the organs down. After interacting with the sculpture, I hope that people with anxiety walk away feeling less alone and people without anxiety walk away with greater empathy.

Technical Details

(refer to project website <https://vivianngiam.notion.site/Vivian-Ngiam-s-Thesis-8d53048f066045248ccc4cd8f01d2c8b> for further documentation of part II and part III) Part II: we.AR.anxious I wanted to also create something that would help me and potentially other people when they are anxious. Hence for the second part of the project, I created we.AR.anxious, bespoke pieces of augmented reality wearables from jewelry to keychains that aim to help with anxiety. With your phone, you can see a calming animation on your keychain or ring and breathe together with the cute AR buddy. AR is built on social AR platforms (MetaSpark, Lens Studio, Effect House) Part III: Using the Hololens, I experimented with AR to visualize a person's heartbeat in real time. This experiment uses a pulse sensor and connects the data of your pulse with what you see in the AR headset. Future exploration include using EEG to monitor heart rates and whenever there is higher cortisol and stress levels, it will send out a notification and prompt users to engage in an activity in AR to help users calm down.