George Khut

The University of New South Wales, Arts and design, Faculty Member

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Address: UNSW Art & Design,
Corner of Greens Road and Oxford Street,
Paddington, NSW

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Papers by George Khut

Multiplicity through connectivity: investigating body-technology-space couplings in participatory activities

The Workshop Call for Participation

We report on a participatory design workshop, which consisted of diverse activities in which part... more We report on a participatory design workshop, which consisted of diverse activities in which participants explored the concept of “connectedness” in various ways. The aim of the workshop was to facilitate multiplicity as a generative strategy to be used in early phases of design. In this position paper, we focus on the machine-mediated performance session of the workshop, in which participants extensively used their bodies to explore ways to couple with technological tools, their partners and the space. The aim of the ...

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Mettāmatics

Mettamatics is an interactive sound sculpture that uses heart-rate-variability biofeedback to sup... more 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.

The use of mobile and new media technologies in a health intervention about HPV and HPV vaccination in schools

Youth, Technology, Governance, Experience

Artful Media Cardiomorphologies: an Inner Journey through Art

5 F or the past four years I've been exploring the possibility of interaction as a form of em... more 5 F or the past four years I've been exploring the possibility of interaction as a form of embodied inquiry through the development of my interactive art project Cardiomorphologies. This physiologically responsive art work responds to autonomically mediated changes in the patterns of breath and heart rates. 1 A large mandala-like video projection and real-time sonification respond to changes in breath and heart rhythms, collected from sensors attached to the participant's body. Participants are invited to explore how these patterns can be transformed through sustained mental/emotional focus and body awareness. Participants experience Cardiomorphologies in 20–30 minute sessions. Participants rest in a comfortable reclining chair and take hold of two cylindrical devices that measure their heart beats. The devices transmit data to the computer, and within 30 seconds participants begin to hear a deep throbbing triggered by their own heart beats, accompanied by the appearance of ...

BrightHearts: A pilot study of biofeedback assisted relaxation training for the management of chronic pain in children with cerebral palsy

Paediatric and Neonatal Pain, 2021

Background: Chronic pain is estimated to impact one-in-three children with cerebral palsy (CP). P... more Background: Chronic pain is estimated to impact one-in-three children with cerebral palsy (CP). Psychological interventions including behavioral and cognitive strategies play a key role in chronic pain management, but there is a paucity of research exploring their use in children with CP. Aim: To investigate the acceptability and feasibility of biofeedback assisted relaxation training (BART) for chronic pain management in children with CP using a mixedmethods study design. Methods: Biofeedback assisted relaxation training was delivered via BrightHearts, an iOS application. Inclusion criteria were as follows: CP; self-reported chronic pain; age 9-18 years; and fluent English speaker. Children used BrightHearts for ten minutes daily, over four weeks. Qualitative post-intervention interviews were undertaken (child, parent) and quantitative pre-post measures (child) were gathered including pain intensity (numerical rating scale), and anxiety intensity (numerical rating scale). Content analysis was conducted for qualitative data. Descriptive statistics and exploratory analyses were performed for quantitative data. Results: Ten children participated (n = 3 male, mean age = 13.1 years SD = 2.5 years, GMFCS level I = 4, II = 2, III = 3, IV = 1). Predominant movement disorder was spasticity (n = 7) and dyskinesia, mainly dystonia (n = 3). Content analysis suggested an overarching theme "BrightHearts is a good thing to put in my toolbox" providing an overall representation of participants' experiences. For many, BrightHearts was a valuable supplement to children's pain management strategies: "The source of the pain is still there, but the actual effect of the pain isn't so relevant." Four sub-themes were identified: "Managing my pain;" "Managing my anxiety and stress," "Helping me do what I need to do;" and "Fitting it into my life." Some participants reported improvements in their anxiety management, and others described benefits in sleep and school following improved pain/anxiety management. A range of practical and personal factors within this heterogeneous group presented barriers to using BrightHearts including limited time, attention, and boredom. Seven-out-of-eight children would recommend This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Mettāmatics

Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, 2020

Mettamatics is an interactive sound sculpture that uses heart-rate-variability biofeedback to sup... more 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 &#39;find their bearings&#39; 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.

Youth, Technology, Governance, Experience

Youth, Technology, Governance, Experience, 2018

How far do adults truly understand youth? How do their conceptions inform interventions into youn... more How far do adults truly understand youth? How do their conceptions inform interventions into young lives or implicate young people’s experiences? Centrally exploring adults’ ideas about youth, Youth, Technology, Governance, Experience seeks to tackle these questions. Specifically, this timely volume uses the four central concepts of youth, technology, governance and experience to examine a range of relationships that exist between adults and youth including those within homes and educational institutions, government bureaucracies, online, via media representations and new technologies; and elsewhere in everyday life. Topics such as media classification, surveillance, sexting, tertiary education, and health provision are approached using a range of disciplines and methods, including survey and ethnographic interviews, action research, policy, archival and textual analysis, and critical theory. The collection’s key concepts – youth, technology, governance, and experience – provide connecting themes across the essays, while also considered on their own terms and with regard to their implications for how we interact with young people. Readers can expect analyses of young people differentiated by gender, class, race, and geography across a range of sites, with attention also given to dominant ideas about and expectations of youth and their varied effects.

The Feasibility of Using the BrightHearts Biofeedback-Assisted Relaxation Application for the Management of Pediatric Procedural Pain: A Pilot Study

Pain Practice, 2018

Objective: The objective of this pilot study was to assess the acceptability and feasibility of u... more Objective: The objective of this pilot study was to assess the acceptability and feasibility of using BrightHearts, a biofeedback-assisted relaxation application (app), in children undergoing painful procedures. Methods: Thirty children 7 to 18 years of age undergoing a medical procedure (peripheral blood collection, botulinum toxin injection, or intravenous cannula insertion) participated. Participants used BrightHearts, a heart rate-controlled biofeedback-assisted relaxation training app delivered via an iPad with heart rate measured through a pulse oximeter worn on the ear or thumb. Feasibility was assessed through observations and patient, parent/carer, and healthcare professional feedback. Patient, parent/carer, and healthcare professional satisfaction with BrightHearts was rated using investigator-developed surveys. Results: Eighty-three percent of child participants reported that they found BrightHearts helpful during the procedure and that they would use BrightHearts again. All parents and 96% of healthcare professionals indicated they would use BrightHearts again. Sixty-four percent of healthcare providers perceived that BrightHearts assisted with the ease of performing the procedure. Qualitative analyses found 2 themes: (1) BrightHearts calms through providing distraction and biofeedback and (2) the impact of BrightHearts on the procedure. Conclusions: This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility of using biofeedback-assisted relaxation delivered via the BrightHearts app in children undergoing peripheral blood collection and cannulation. Future studies are required to evaluate BrightHearts' efficacy in reducing pain and anxiety during painful procedures and distinguish the effects of a biofeedback-mediated app from distraction. &

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Embracing First-Person Perspectives in Soma-Based Design

Informatics, 2018

A set of prominent designers embarked on a research journey to explore aesthetics in movement-bas... more A set of prominent designers embarked on a research journey to explore aesthetics in movement-based design. Here we unpack one of the design sensitivities unique to our practice: a strong first person perspective-where the movements, somatics and aesthetic sensibilities of the designer, design researcher and user are at the forefront. We present an annotated portfolio of design exemplars and a brief introduction to some of the design methods and theory we use, together substantiating and explaining the first-person perspective. At the same time, we show how this felt dimension, despite its subjective nature, is what provides rigor and structure to our design research. Our aim is to assist researchers in soma-based design and designers wanting to consider the multiple facets when designing for the aesthetics of movement. The applications span a large field of designs, including slow introspective, contemplative interactions, arts, dance, health applications, games, work applications and many others.

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Developing BrightHearts: a pediatric biofeedback mediated relaxation app to manage procedural pain and anxiety

Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain, Jan 27, 2017

The objective of this study was to develop a child-friendly biofeedback mediated relaxation devic... more The objective of this study was to develop a child-friendly biofeedback mediated relaxation device called "BrightHearts". Qualitative data were collected at a tertiary pediatric hospital to inform an iterative design process. Clinicians participated in expert group interviews to identify practical considerations which would facilitate the use of BrightHearts during procedures and provide feedback on prototype designs. Children aged 7-18 years participated in interactive exhibitions of the prototypes and were interviewed about their experience using BrightHearts. Twenty-four clinicians participated in 6 group interviews. Thirty-nine children participated in interactive exhibitions and 21 were interviewed. Clinicians placed high value on the following factors in the management of procedural pain: providing children with an element of control, the use of relaxation techniques, the use of portable electronic devices such as iPads (Apple Inc Cupertino CA). They highlighted the ...

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Designing Biofeedback Artworks for Relaxation

Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016

For the past twelve years I have been exploring the aesthetic and cultural potential of biofeedba... more For the past twelve years I have been exploring the aesthetic and cultural potential of biofeedback interactions as a means for facilitating experience of, and reflection on, the physiological dimensions of our embodiment. Information extracted in real-time from heart rate sensors, relating to specific modes or qualities of engagement and nervous system orientation, modulate the various layers that comprise work's visual and sonic appearance i.e. brightness, size, hue, timbre, pitch and harmonies etc. The biofeedback information displays used in these works need to support modes of interaction in which parasympathetic nervous system activity can be voluntarily increased and sympathetic nervous system activity i.e. stress/excitation responses, are decreased. This paper describes some approaches used in these works to address these competing requirements.

Move to be Moved

Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016

Movement-based design is reaching critical mass in HCI, and we can start to identify strategies, ... more Movement-based design is reaching critical mass in HCI, and we can start to identify strategies, similarities and differences in how it is approached. Similarities may include, for example, a strong first person perspective on design, emphasising movement, somatics and aesthetic sensibilities of the designer, as well as starting from the premise that our bodily ways of being in the world are shaped by the ecologies of people, cultural practices and the artefacts we create and use. Different classes of systems are starting to emerge, such as spurring somaesthetic appreciation processes using biofeedback loops or carefully nudging us to interact with our own movements; engaging us in affective loops where the technology takes on a stronger agency, attempting to pull participants into particular experiences; extending on our senses and perception-even creating new senses through technology; social interactions, engaging us to jointly explore movement or touch; even endowing machines with their own 'somatics', exploring our relationship to technology; as well as engaging in larger political issues around the body, such as gender perspectives, or challenging the mind-body divide.

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Cardiomorphologies

Intimate Aesthetics and Facilitated Interaction

Springer Series on Cultural Computing, 2014

With the recent emergence of intimate Live Art and performance practices in the past decades, inv... more With the recent emergence of intimate Live Art and performance practices in the past decades, involving artists and audiences interacting in close physical proximity and one-to-one communication, the body is brought centre stage as the site and material of aesthetic experience. Artists working with these modes of address aim to heighten and intensify the experience of the artwork, through the charged energy of face-to-face confrontation, exchange and close bodily proximity. Our particular interest as artistic practitioners is in intimate body-focused aesthetic experiences, mediated by digital technologies that explore the interactions between physiological processes, bodily sensation and subjectivity. In contrast to autonomous art objects that can be experienced by an individual without any assistance by others, we propose a model of aesthetic experience in which facilitation by artists and witnessing by others are integral components. The guidance and facilitation by artists through an experience is intended to provide safe structures and pathways within which a participant can surrender to the potentially immersive and refl ective states of consciousness offered by the artwork. Our framework describes four stages of audience experience and participation that can be used to develop and evaluate body-based Live Art encounters: (1) Welcoming, (2) Fitting and Induction, (3) The Ride, and (4) Debriefi ng and Documentation. We show the application of our model through two case studies from our artistic practices, illustrating our particular perspective on evaluation as a form of facilitated critique and refl ection for audience, as well as artists.

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Designing for the experiential body

CHI '14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2014

The goal of this panel is to reflect on the past and discuss the present and future of designing ... more The goal of this panel is to reflect on the past and discuss the present and future of designing for an experiencing body in HCI. The motivation is to discuss the full range of rich body/movement-based experiences and how the CHI community can embrace and extend these perspectives on designing for the body. The panelists and audience will be asked to share their perspectives on what has most influenced thought in designing for the body, how new sensing technologies are crafting the HCI perspective, and where they see this line of research and design heading in the next ten years.

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Re-sensitising the body: interactive art and the Feldenkrais method

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2013

ABSTRACT This article describes interdisciplinary research undertaken by a group of artists, desi... more ABSTRACT This article describes interdisciplinary research undertaken by a group of artists, designers, curators and somatic bodywork practitioners to explore a human-centred approach to the potential of touch, movement, balance and proprioception as modalities for interactive art. Somatic bodywork methodologies such as the Feldenkrais method provide highly developed frameworks for attending to these very phenomena. Re-sensitising the body through somatic investigations allowed us as makers of body-focussed interactive art to translate the subtle shifts in attention and nuances of felt sensation into the audience experience of sensor-based interactive artworks. We describe the results of a yearlong project through our experience of the making of one specific experimental artwork, surging verticality. We reflect on the conditions for audience engagement and the profound connections we experienced between Feldenkrais somatic bodywork and art practice as modes of enquiry into the world.

Evolving Creative Practice: A reflection on working with audience experience in Cardiomorphologies

Vital Signs: Creative Practice & New …, 2005

... onto the screen as animated visualizations in various ways such as expanding and contracting ... more

The BrightHearts Project: A New Approach to the Management of Procedure-Related Paediatric Anxiety

artshealthfoundation.org.au

Page 1. 1 The BrightHearts Project: A New Approach to the Management of Procedure-Related Paediat... more

Interactive Art as Embodied Enquiry: Working with Audience Experience

Engage: Interaction

... Interactive art as embodied inquiry: working with audience experience ... Dewey, J. (1958) Ar... more

Biofeedback assisted relaxation training and distraction therapy for pain in children undergoing botulinum neurotoxin A injections: A crossover randomized controlled trial

Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology

George Khut

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