Human EMF Sensor Switch

Human Electromagnetic Field Sensing With Arduino

The Human EMF Sensor Switch includes use of an Arduino Diecimila microcontroller, a 10M ohm resister, a 9v battery, a red LED, allegator clips, and some household aluminum foil. When operational, the foil acts as a detecting sensor and is sensitive enough to react to a human hand just before actual contact. In this manner, human interaction becomes an integral component of the switch schematic. Sensing human energetic fields, as opposed to motion or touch, could present a number of  intriguing contexts for performative interaction and the conceptual interpretation of a piece. Referring to ‘the essence of Being’, for instance, as opposed to the materiality of existing….

The electronics schematic:

EMFschema

Assembly & Operation:

EMF10Mohm

EMF10MLED

This detector is an alternate adaptation of Aaron Alai’s Arduino EMF Detector, whom kindly provided the Arduino programming code. Find process documentation (of the Human EMF Sensor Switch) project here and here.