Overview

Mind Games goes against the conventional competitive concept. It is the most uniquely interactive event because a truly successful Mind Games player can alternate between activity and adrenalin, passivity and calmness, evoking different emotions based on the objectives of the round. Mind Games is not controlled by the player’s rational and strategic thoughts and decisions, but instead, the participants are dependent on the body’s own intuitive reactions to the game machine.

Two students challenge one another, and take their respective positions at each end of a table which is laid out with two goals and a little stainless steel ball. Both players wear a strap around their forehead that contains electrodes, and is wired up to a biosensor system. The system that is used to measure the body’s biological signals is tightly fastened to the frontal lobes and registers the electrical activity in the brain – so called EEG. The player’s brain activity is graphed in a diagram on the 50 inch monitor so that the audience can easily follow the players’ mental processes during the match. The brain waves that move the ball forward, increasing the chance of victory, are called alpha and theta waves; They are generated in the brain when one is calm and relaxed. A considerably stressed player will therefore lose.