Acclair is a company and an ongoing research project utilizing an EEG device to figure out artwork’s value and users’ safety clearance.

If there’s one thing I hate it is being locked down to a single path, and being unable to switch lanes. Some of the most successful companies in the market made use of everyday technology to innovate: Facebook, Google and of course Apple. In the field of bio-med, however, I sometimes feel we’re being somewhat narrow minded when it comes to the incredible devices we deal with every day.

Consider an EEG. It is a pretty regular device in the biomedical field, often used to obtain readings of brain activity for medical diagnostic purposes. And now take a look at what Acclair, a company with offices in London and an ongoing research project, has done with it. They are utilizing an EEG device to do a ‘brain fingerprinting’ test to various persons, while exposing them to a series of visual and sonic stimuli, which include security-related events and – surprisingly – artwork. Their objectives are to judge a person, as a sort of an extremely convoluted security test, by the responding electrical pattern that appears on the screen. Alternatively, they’re already making attempts at judging the real value of a piece of art according to the viewers’ brainwaves.

Ridiculous? Maybe. Science fiction? Definitely. To be honest, I’m not even sure just how much real science can be found in their diagnostic algorithms. All the same, it is a new approach for an ancient tool of the industry, and who knows? Maybe these innovative fellows will one day lead the new information revolution using tools obtained from the biomedical field.

Last but not least: If you would like to make contact with them, you might want to try Israeli Eyal Fried, an interactive designer and social researcher, who lectured on Acclair’s behalf in the recent Synthetic Reality conference in Haifa University.

Acclair’s site

A brochure on the company