Heart, Brain, Music & Data

Heart, Brain, Music & Data brought together musicians, cardiologists, neuroscientists, artists and dancers to share their research creating musical representations of health data.  This interdisciplinary event was organised by Professor of Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research Sally Marlow and Professor of Engineering Elaine Chew.  Elaine Chew and Pier Lambiase gave a demonstration of the HeartFM mobile app and visualisation software, part of an ERC Proof of Concept project exploring the therapeutic potential of music with physiological feedback in cardiovascular disease. In this demonstration, Hilary Sturt, Ian Pressland and Elaine Chew played Schubert's Trio Op.100 Andante con moto to Denis Noble while data from the piano and from their hearts and breathing were captured and visualised in real time.   Other demonstrations included the musical and visual mapping of brain data from psylocibin experiments (presented by neuroscientist Dr Joe Barnby), and two composed works using epilepsy (presented by composer Emily Howard) and depression data (presented by creative producer and mental health professional Alina Ivan), the latter accompanied by dance.  Autistic Artist Ben Ford-Smith also shared work created while wearing an EEG cap capturing brain data.  The event was also audio recorded as part of the development of a possible BBC radio programme on healthcare data sonification, and was the starting point for discussions for an exciting new collaboration bringing these diverse projects together.