metaflore by maucout louis-éric from france

Metaflore
A living interface of our emotional shifts.

Motion can be interpreted in different ways. On a mechanical level or on a more personal level. As a matter of fact, our daily life is filled with a specific type of motion, the movement of our soul : our emotions.
For the time being, interpretation of emotions is about a personal and subjective thought. However, with improving sensors and knowledge, emotions are progressively becoming an objective and quantifiable data, just as weight measured by a scale, or time measured by a clock. It is thus tempting to create a precise and charted feedback for a better understanding and control, in a "quantified-self" state of mind.

Nevertheless, by doing so, one tend to forget that an essential part of emotion resides in the physical perception of shifting mood. If measuring emotion is about giving an externalized representation, would it be possible to have a feedback that let us actually touch and feel our emotions ?

Metaflore uses real-time measured data (for example with the Q-sensor sold by Affectiva, an MIT spin-off) to nourish lichen, a living composite organism. The latter is watered with mist whenever relaxation or excitement is detected. On the contrary, anxiety or boredom will stop the nourishing process during a certain timeframe.

The state of the lichen is a poetic reflection of a metadata : the emotional shifts of the person to which it is linked.

Metaflore can be divided in 7 main parts (cf. image 6) :
1. a water recipient made out of glass
2. a mist-maker plunged into the recipient
3. a technical element made out of ABS by FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) which protects a Arduino circuit board. The Arduino board communicates via WIFI or bluetooth with a local laptop connected to the internet. The data is retrieved in real-time from the Q-sensor and is used to control the interruptor of the mist-maker.
4. a conic flat funnel (ABS by FDM) to guide the mist to the whole surface
5. a metallic grid to set the lichen (which has no roots) on the object
6. a metallic funnel
7. lichen

Metaflore uses lichen for several reasons. The aspect of the lichen changes fast when humidified : the texture becomes softer and the color becomes greener. Also, the lichen resists to long period of drought. It grows very slow (about 1cm/year) and finally, on a more symbolic level, lichen is often used as a bio indicator for pollution.

A good analogy of Metaflore would be an emotional bonsaï which needs to be taken care of.