Paralyzed Artist Paint With Mind, Exhibition Running

Heide Pfüetzner is a paralyzed woman and loves to paint. But her paralysis condition couldn’t stop her from painting. This artist can paint using an Intendix Painting software from biomedical engineering firm Gtec that lets her control digital brushes with brainwaves.


Heide Pfüetzner

Since 2007, Heide Pfüetzner has been suffering from “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)“, or “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. And due to this disease, she became paralyzed. However, as she had a great interest in painting, so she had been painting by her mind via a computer.

Paralyzed Painter Heide Pfüetzner

There are two screens – one displaying the software’s matrix of tools and the other functions like a canvas, showing the picture as it evolves. The images of the various tools flash at different times.

Matrix Of Tools On Intendix Painting

As Pfüetzner focuses on the tool she wants to select, she counts the flashes, causing her brain activity to spike. The computer determines which option she’s focusing on by comparing the timing of the brainwaves to the timing of the desired flashing tool.

Vibrant Semi-abstract Painting

In the last six years, Heide Pfüetzner has created a lot of paintings and now an exhibition named “Brain on Fire,” is running on at Easdale, a small island off the west coast of Scotland. Visitors to the Easdale Island Hall there are now seeing the vibrantly colored digital paintings. The exhibit will run till July 25.

Source: CNET

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Anatol

Anatol Rahman is the Editor at TheTechJournal. He loves complicated machineries, and crazy about robot and space. He likes cycling. Before joining TheTechJournal team, he worked in the telemarketing industry. You can catch him on Google+.

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