RIDE YOUR MIND

BACKGROUND RIDE YOUR MIND (RYM) is an experimental and artistic "NeuroVR Game" generated by neurofeedback in real-time. It is an artistic research project of Jens M. Stober, doctoral researcher at RMIT University's Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory (GEElab). "NeuroVR Game" describes the combination of Neurofeedback and Virtual Reality (VR) in a gameful setting. The research project RYM should also serve as help to define future Neurogame Design Patterns and Neurogame Design Strategies. The concept of RYM is based on a playful strategy for designing artistic games that is extracted from the history of Hacking (Stober, Walz, Holopainen, 2013). CONTRIBUTION The aim of RYM is to imbue its player with an awareness of his own brain as a consciously controllable tool comparable, for example, to his hand. It achieves this aim by forcing the player's conscious acting into competition with his subconscious acting; the player receives direct neuronal feedback showing him his unconscious brain activity, eliciting a whole new sensation of self. At the same time, the Virtual Reality environment designed as a void, allows the player to interact by moving his head, which, in turn, triggers further brain activity - a feedback loop. RYM is dealing with highly sensitive personal data in the form of EEG brain signals. The data only gets stored if a player allows it. Later this data could also be used by medical experts and thereby serve as a contribution to cognitive neurological research. SIGNIFICANCE Neurogames could be the next "big thing". The game art installation RYM playfully examines current possibilities of consumer neuro interface technology as experimental entertainment. The result should subversively address security issues of this emerging and already available technology in an artistic and gameful scenario. RYM is exhibited since August 2015 at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany - the world's largest cultural institution for new media.