Installation
    moss pillow
    red blue green
Image
    hongkong
    birds
    patterns
    documents of     human
    In the dark
Drawing
    bath
    hierarchical
    a poem
    sketches
Documentary
    song of birds
Me
    who am i (good question...)
    
    

Breathing plays an important part in human health. Deep breathing can help us reduce stress and anxiety, practice mindfulness, and increase memory. But I did not notice these significant benefits until I had a yoga class last week. In the class, I laid down on the yoga mat and closed my eyes, breathing and listening carefully to the outside noise. At that time, I felt a strong sense of relaxation and calm coming from my heart. Then, I start to think about how breathing and meditation play a role for young people. In today’s society, people are much more likely to be anxious than ever before. Even if you choose to seek comfort on the Internet or social media, these negative emotions are not effectively addressed. In this project, I hope to provide a space / installation for people to breathe deeply, to put down their phones and really feel the positive impact of breathing.
MossPillow is a living pillow that uses soil-less plants as the fabric materials. Also, it has some functions that can help users have deep breathing. (structure design &  ML and sensors for sounds & smelling selection)



I have researched 4 types of food and plants, testing their attributes to become a fabric material. I have grown some kombucha materials in my apartment. Because the kombucha was not raw, they did not grow well and had some really bad smell. Also, the growing process was a little bit time consuming, about 1 - 2 weeks. Then, I did some research about mushrooms. Mushroom growing also needs certain conditions, and the mushroom textures are not what I want. Later, I came to research some moss types. There are two types of moss that were prospective: Pincushion Moss and Spanish Moss. Although pincushion moss is more tolerant of drought, It still needs water and a wet environment, so I excluded it. To conclude, I finally decided to use spanish moss, which is both a dietary supplement and indoor soilless living plants, as the fabric mat of the pillow. Also, I really like the hard dry mushroom, so I would use dry mushroom to make the pillow stuffing and supports
Process
My first idea was to create a machine learning tool that can help detect emotion changes by using BPM data from pulse sensors. But after some tryings, I realized that the training process was really difficult. Then, I changed my idea to using body gestures and face recognition to trigger some music and natural sounds.