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A Historical Perspective of the Biofeedback Art: Pioneering Artists and Contributions

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ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation (ArtsIT 2023)

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Abstract

The biofeedback interfaces were initially developed for medical reasons and revolutionized the way we represent the body and its functions due to the possibilities they brought to expand, conceptualize, investigate, and present body information through sounds and images. Biofeedback interfaces outside the medical context demand new interaction paradigms that radicalize the relationship between the body and the machine. The appropriation of the biofeedback technology by artists resulted in an artistic-scientific research program named biofeedback art or biosignal art, which involves, above all, transdisciplinary practices. Such a transdisciplinary aspect is explained: biofeedback art is inspired by applied techno-science research while contributing to and informing part of them since it deals with interoception, perception, and cognitive processes in general. Biofeedback art should not be seen only as a specialized technical operation field but also as an area of inventiveness and cultural criticism. The paper presents an overview of biofeedback art, focusing on its emergence in the 1960s and 1970s, and its transdisciplinary contributions. The historical research methodology and a narrative and systematic literature review guide the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Pará, Belém, PA, 66075-110, Brazil

    Hosana Celeste Oliveira

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  1. Hosana Celeste Oliveira
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Correspondence to Hosana Celeste Oliveira .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Anthony L. Brooks

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© 2024 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Oliveira, H.C. (2024). A Historical Perspective of the Biofeedback Art: Pioneering Artists and Contributions. In: Brooks, A.L. (eds) ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation. ArtsIT 2023. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 565. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55312-7_26

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55312-7_26

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-55311-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-55312-7

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