Brainbar is a mechanical bar that mixes drinks adapted to the visitor’s brainwaves. The customer wears a sensor-studded headband and the robot bartender reads the brain frequencies(electroencephalogram) in the alpha and beta wavelength. These wavelengths are generally considered to indicate the states of relaxation and activity in the mind.

Depending on how the bar is tuned it will then mix a drink to enhance or suppress the guest’s feelings.

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BrainBar is a kind of manipulator that gives a party its perfect state of enhanced socialising, adjusting the drinks so that every guest stays within acceptable parameters for a “good” behaviour or, if the settings allow, a “bad” one.

The project explores how much a person is prepared to submit to external forces and how far s/he can allow a machine to intrude on the body.

Brainbar is part of Touching the Invisible, a touring exhibition about how we live surrounded by invisible flows of information. The six Smart studio‘s projects shown include the famous Brainball game; monochromeye, a vision device with a fingerholder that picks up color readings and transmits them into the viewer’s eyes; RemoteHome, an installation comprised of two apartments located at a distance from one another. The sofa in one of them sags if the friend living in the other apartment sits on it; etc.

Related: the RoboBar, the Bar Bot, Swipe installation.