Mettāmatics: Designing Biofeedback Displays for Arts-based Health Engagement

Mettamatics is an interactive sound sculpture that uses heart-rate-variability biofeedback to support participants to observe and experiment with very slow variations in heart rate patterning that can be voluntarily elicited through feelings of compassion, benevolence, gratitude and equanimity, coupled with relaxed, effortless breathing. In this paper arts-based health engagement is introduced as a context for designing and presenting body-focused interactive art, and frequency-domain methods for analysing and representing changes in heart rate variability are introduced. It outlines approaches used in the design of Mettamatics III for supporting participants to 'find their bearings' within the work, through the incorporation of pre-recorded inductions, and reflects on the effectiveness of these introductory recordings for improving participant engagement, and obtaining information on low and ultra-low frequency changes in heart rate that can only be obtained with several minutes of data.