ARTE Y CIENCIA

Arts del CERN
¿Pueden las diferentes artes y ciencias investigar juntas y dar respuesta a los retos de hoy? Sí en el CERN. En este prestigioso centro europeo para la investigación nuclear, no sólo se ubica el potente acelerador de partículas, alberga además numerosos proyectos tan sugerentes como la Cámara de Nubes. Nos lo cuenta Mónica Bello, la comisaria y crítica de arte que hoy en día está al frente del programa Arts del CERN.

Elements: a interactive tabletop artwork for motor rehabilitation

Elements is an interactive artwork designed to support movement assessment and rehabilitation for patients recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury. Brain injured patients frequently exhibit impaired upper-limb function including reduced range of motion and accuracy of reaching, and inability to grasp and lift objects or to perform fine motor movements. The Elements responds to this level of disability by using an intuitive tabletop workspace that affords basic gestural control.

Elements provide the patient with a suite of playful software applications for composing with sounds and visual feedback that promote artistic activity. Painting and sound mixing is expressed through the patient’s upper limb control of soft graspable user interfaces. These environments are designed to evoke the patient’s interests in practicing otherwise limited movement skills.

Through playful interaction, users can seek out new effects, sounds and visual features to see how they work. By doing so, patients discover new ways of relating to their body and relearn their movement capabilities in a self-directed fashion.

This system consists of a horizontal tabletop graphics display, an integrated vision-based tracking system, wireless Tangible User Interfaces and 3D computer game authoring software. Patient’s movements can be tracked and recorded over time for later analysis.