BODIES DON'T LIE

A Hackathon that transforms heart, brain, skin, breath, and movement signals into interactive experiences

Organizer

Mirna Zordan and Xiao Xiao

Over three days in Shenzhen, BODIES DON'T LIE invited participants to ask a more playful question: what if the body itself could become an input, a medium, and a co-author of interactive experiences? The hackathon explored physiological signals, transforming them through rapid prototyping into light, sound, visuals, haptics, and embodied interaction.

The final outcomes took three very different directions:

BIOVOX: Making Invisible Physiological States Tangible Through Singing

BIOVOX is a physiological interaction experience designed for KTV environments that makes invisible bodily states tangible through singing. The system captures real-time EEG and heart rate signals from two singers and translates them into responsive ambient light and composite visual feedback Specifically, EEG metrics (attention, relaxation, and frequency bands) drive physical lighting speed, color softness, and regional brightness via Arduino, while dual heart rate streams are calibrated against each participant's 20-second personal baseline to generate individual visual streams and a real-time synchronization score that progresses from independent states to awareness, connection, and deep fusion.

Symbiotic Juggling: When Your Body Juggles Back

Symbiotic Juggling explores how invisible physiological effort can become an expressive, co-performing material alongside visible physical movement during juggling. Combining three glowing LED juggling balls with wearable sensors (Polar H10 and BrainLink EEG) and a live dashboard, the project captures throws, catches, torso movement, heart rate, and EEG-derived attention/meditation signals to translate bodily relationships into light, rhythm, and atmosphere. By comparing synchronized biometric recordings between a beginner and an experienced juggler, the project reveals how skill reorganizes bodily effort and movement economy, framing biometrics as a responsive medium for performance rather than a diagnostic score.

Heartbeat Hug (Je t'aime comme un arc-en-ciel)

Heartbeat Hug is an affective haptic installation that transforms biometric signals into embodied experiences of warmth and physical embrace. Drawing on precedents in biometric intimacy and telepresence touch, the prototype uses heart rate sensing (Polar H10) and tactile actuators to operate in two modes: a Self Embrace Mode, where the installation reads the user's own heartbeat and breathing and reproduces their warmth and rhythmic movement against the chest as if holding one's younger self, and a Remote / Two-Person Mode, where two people's heartbeats are transmitted over a network onto a shared chest interface so participants can feel each other's pulse and gradually synchronize rhythms across distance.