Hospital Sculpture Interacts With Human Heartbeats

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This interactive artwork by Andrew Small and Steven Almond was commissioned for the Royal Manchester Childrens’ Hospital in the UK. The sculpture uses digital lighting, medical monitoring equipment and control devices, and it becomes a heart rate monitor when people interact with it.

At rest, the artwork ‘breathes’ in waves of blue light at the average human breath rate. When a person interacts with it by holding the grips, it takes and projects their heart rate in pulses of red light. Infrared sensors around the sculpture create different color and sequence patterns when their beams are broken, and the sculpture also becomes a clock for five minutes on the hour. Click through to see pictures of the project design and the interactive artwork, and watch the video to see it in action.