Electrical and chemical signals are constantly traveling throughout our brains and bodies, carrying sensations, thoughts, emotions and our reactions to the world around us. Studying these signals and how they can be altered by external stimuli and internal contexts gives us a window into ourselves and how we can enhance our health, well-being and capabilities in the 21st century. I’ll talk about my work studying signals from the body in the lab as well as in the non-traditional contexts of art museums and galleries to generate new datasets and test new hypotheses. I’ll also discuss the EmotiBit, a new open-source multi-biosensor platform under development at Connected Future Labs, that makes it cheap and easy to start reading signals from the body with scientifically validated sensors.

Sean Montgomery is a technologist, educator and new-media artist in New York City. Using research methodologies combined with emerging technologies, Sean takes a trans-disciplinary look at the human condition to examine the changing relationship between the physical and metaphysical world. From developing wearable bio-sensors and algorithms that derive meaning from sensor data to creating interactive new-media art installations that have shown around the world, Sean’s work focuses on how technology can enhance our understanding of ourselves and create new ways for people to interact with one another and the objects around them. After finishing his Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Sean founded Connected Future Labs, an agile R&D consulting group that utilizes a depth of expertise in circuits, algorithms and design to bring cutting-edge technology out of the research lab and create real-world applications.