Synaptic Sanctum Neuroscape: real-time emotionally adaptive music in a VR immersive environment

Synaptic Sanctum Neuroscape is an immersive EEG-driven project that intertwines the realms of neuroscience, music composition, and virtual reality. Developed using Max/MSP and Unreal Engine 5, this immersive experience employs a custom EEG device to read users' brainwaves, transforming their neural activity into emotionally adaptive music and particle systems. The sound spatialization uses ambisonics, and music and environmental sounds are rendered in binaural format for the VR headset's headphones. This real-time EEG-driven composition, while reflecting the user's alert/relaxed states, also adapts the musical landscape in response to the user's evolving emotional dynamics, and the auditory experience becomes an intimate collaboration between their neural patterns and the generative musical algorithm. The EEG data also drives particle systems and manages the duration of the 3D granulator's grains. This granulator, built with the Max/MSP CataRT library, manifests as glowing spheres within the virtual space, utilizing concatenative synthesis where each sphere encapsulates a unique sonic fragment, and its position and size are given by its sonic features. The visual elements resonate with the music, creating a multisensory symphony that transcends the boundaries of traditional VR experiences. The spatialization of this dynamically generated music is managed by the ambisonics library Spat5: sound is encoded in ambisonics and decoded in binaural format, allowing for a 3D perception of the music, and enhancing the overall sense of presence and engagement. This project merges cheap custom EEG technology and free VR development tools, dark aesthetics and generative art, and invites participants to embark on a synesthetic journey through the realms of their minds, where the convergence of science and art allows users to explore what technology can show us of ourselves.