At first glance, it looks somewhat like a shortenedversion of the habit a monk or nun would wear. Natural materials lend adeliberate classical touch to this high-tech meditation outfit byDanielle Roberts (artist at Awareness Lab). Together with a designer,scientists, businesses, students and DesignLab University of Twente, Robertsspent the past few months working on an ambitious plan: to realize a high-techmeditation kit that measures the correlation between the quality of meditationand environmental factors. The showpiece is the Silence Suit: a high-techmeditation outfit equipped with biometric and environmental sensors.
Roberts, who has decades of experiencewith meditation, was curious about how environmental factors affect the qualityof one’s meditation. Winning a funding round via the European project WEAR Sustain – whichsupports research into sustainable and ethical wearables – brought her closerto finding the answers she was looking for. Roberts started by examining theeffect light has on the quality of meditation.
Together with designer Vera de Pont, businesses, scientists and students from the University of Twente, she developed a complete high-tech meditation kit. In addition to the Silence Suit, it consists of a proprietary software platform ('the Dataserver'), which stores and analyses qualitative and quantitative meditation data. With the help of an algorithm, the system gets to know the meditator better and better over time. Using Internet of Things technology, the Dataserver automatically adjusts the environmental factor to create the perfect meditation experience.
OPEN SOURCE
Of course, the Silence Suit is made ofnatural materials such as pure wool and a viscose/modal mix. The casings areprinted with PLA, a filament made with lactic acid. With its nine sensors, thesuit provides insight into aspects such as posture, breathing, heartrate andthe pressure between one’s fingers and their relation to the quality of themeditation.
Most electronic components are readilyavailable at any electronics webshop. This makes it easy to replace or upgradethe components, Roberts explains. “We chose these components deliberately. Wewant to make the suit and the software available to others via Open Source."
All in the details: 3D prints and laser-cut icons onthe meditation suit’s fabric indicate where the sensors and cable connectionsare located.
Curious
Combining spirituality and technology is a touchy subject. Nevertheless, themeditation world is “curious” about the kit, Roberts says. “My experiments werefilled in the blink of an eye. People are curious about their meditation data.They say the suit is quite comfortable, despite how many electronic componentsit has.” Personally, Roberts says that the Silence Suit helps her to becomemore aware of the intentions and results of her meditation.
future plans
Roberts already has plans for the future: conductingmore intensive experiments, measuring other factors such as sound and scent,making the kit available via open source and creating artistic visualizationsof the meditation data.
Her ultimate dream? Telemeditation:meditating together remotely. “This successful project has inspired me to keepgoing,” Roberts says.
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Roberts (Awareness Lab) would like to thank the following parties from their contribution to this project:
Designer: Vera de Pont
Intern Awareness Lab: Meike Kurella
ProtoSpace: Anne van den Heuvel, Simon de Bakker, Jan-Jaap Schuurman
DesignLab: Stephen Geerlings, Klaas de Haan, Stefan Paun, Olaf van der Meer, Jelmer Dijkstra, Edo de Wolf, Frank Kresin, Nicola Liberati
System architecture: Hans d’Achard
Data science Germán Bravo
Researcher: Tom Bergman
Baltan Laboratories: Koen Snoeckx (mentor)
