Mirjana Prpa

profile

Position:

Alumnus (PhD Student in iSpace Lab)

Contact:

mprpa at sfu.ca
http://madzie.com/

Affiliations:

Biography

Mirjana Prpa is an archi­tect, a vir­tual real­ity utopian and a grad­u­ate stu­dent ­ researcher at iSpace lab for Virtual Reality at School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Vancouver, Canada. She received a Master Degree in archi­tec­ture from the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, and has worked mainly on ephemeral designs for per­for­mance art projects includ­ing projects for the­aters and open public spaces. Her cur­rent research is in user per­son­al­ized spaces that are cre­ated based on user’s emo­tional states and traits res­onate with the envi­ron­ment (vir­tual and physical).

Projects

Virtual Earthgazing - towards an overview effect in Virtual Reality

How can we use immersive VR to give people pivotal positive experiences without having to send them out into space?   “We went to the Moon as technicians, we returned as humanitarians” reflected Edgar Mitchell after his space flight. This describes the overview effect – a profound awe-inspiring experience of seeing Earth from space resulting in a cognitive shift in worldview, le...


Pulse Breath Water

Pulse Breath Water is an immersive virtual environment manipulated by the pulse of a participant’s breath that provokes and challenges the interaction between a user and the substantial element of the environment: water. The system “senses” the participant, while the participant’s breathing feeds the system. The process is a symbiotic play between internal human processes [biosensing t...


state.scape: EEG-based Responsive Art Installation

State.scape: Using EEG-based brain-computer interfaces for a responsive art installation State.scape is an interactive installation in which audio-visuals are generated from users affective states (engagement, excitement, and meditation). The installation relies on a brain-computer interface based virtual environment and sonification, which both served as a platform for the exploration of users...


Biofeedback in VR - SOLAR

Resonance in Virtual Environments: hacking biofeedback for altering user's affective states How can we combine immersive virtual environments (VE) with biofeedback and gamification to foster relaxation, de-stressing and meditative states? That is, instead of increasing sensory overload, can we use the immersive and affective potential of VE and gamification to assist especially novice meditato...


Sonic Cradle

Sonic Cradle suspends the body is a completely dark chamber which encourages experiences comparable to mindfulness meditation.  Users compose peaceful soundscapes in real-time using only their breathing. [vimeo 35764652] Introduction and demo of the Sonic Cradle Sonic Cradle is a relaxing human-computer interaction paradigm designed to foster meditative attentional patterns.  The current p...


Publications

Riecke, B. E, Jacqueline D. Jordan, Mirjana Prpa, and Daniel Feuereissen. 2014. “Underlying Perceptual Issues in Virtual Reality Systems: Does Display Type Affect Self-Motion Perception?” Talk presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (Psychonomics), Los Angeles, USA.
Prpa, Mirjana, Kivanc Tatar, Bernhard E. Riecke, and Philippe Pasquier. 2017. “The Pulse Breath Water System: Exploring Breathing as an Embodied Interaction for Enhancing the Affective Potential of Virtual Reality.” In Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality (VAMR 2017), edited by S. Lackey and J. Chen, 10280:153–72. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer.
Stepanova, Ekaterina, Denise Quesnel, Alexandra Kitson, Mirjana Prpa, Ivan Aguilar, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2018. “A Framework for Studying Transformative Experiences through VR.” Symposium presentation presented at the 23rd Annual CyberPsychology, CyberTherapy & Social Networking Conference, Gatineau, Canada, June. http://interactivemediainstitute.com/cypsy23/.
Kitson, A., Prpa, M., & Riecke, B. E. (2018). Immersive Interactive Technologies for Positive Change: A Scoping Review and Design Considerations. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01354
Jordan, Jacqueline D., Mirjana Prpa, Daniel Feuereissen, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2014. “Comparing the Effectiveness of Stereo Projection vs 3D TV in Inducing Self-Motion Illusions (Vection).” In , 128. Vancouver, Canada. https://doi.org/10.1145/2628257.2628360.
Prpa, M., Cochrane, K., & Riecke, B. E. (2016). Hacking Alternatives in 21st Century: Designing a Bio-Responsive Virtual Environment for Stress Reduction. In S. Serino, A. Matic, D. Giakoumis, G. Lopez, & P. Cipresso (Eds.), Pervasive Computing Paradigms for Mental Health (pp. 34–39). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32270-4_4
Prpa, M., Tatar, K., Pasquier, P., & Riecke, B. E. (2016, November). Pulse Breath Water [Exhibition]. MUTEK International Festival of Digital Creativity and Electronic Music: MUTEK_IMG + VR Salon, Montreal, Canada.
Kitson, Alexandra, Mirjana Prpa, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2017. “Designing Virtual Environments for Breath-Awareness and Eliciting Positive Affective States.” Poster presented at the 3rd Annual Innovations in Psychiatry and Behavioral Health: Virtual Reality and Behavior Change, Stanford University, CA, USA, October 6. https://med.stanford.edu/cme/courses/2017/psychiatry17.html.
Prpa, Mirjana, Denise Quesnel, Jay Vidyarthi, Alexandra Kitson, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2016. “Sonic Cradle - Immersive Interaction Design Combining Breathing- and Neurofeedback to Foster Focused Attention Meditation on Breath.” Poster presented at the 2nd International Conference on Mindfulness, Rome, Italy, May. http://www.cmc-ia.org/icm2016rome/.
Prpa, Mirjana, Svetozar Miucin, and Bernhard E Riecke. 2014. “Towards User Personalized Environments: An Artistic Exploration Using an EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interface,.” Poster presented at the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) Conference, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Prpa, Mirjana, Svetozar Miucin, and Bernhard E Riecke. 2014. “Using an EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces for a Responsive Art Installation.” Poster presented at the ACM Symposium on Computational Aesthetics (CAe), Vancouver, Canada. http://expressive2014.mpi-inf.mpg.de/.
Prpa, Mirjana, Kivanc Tatar, Philippe Pasquier, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2016. “Living In A Box: Potentials and Challenges of Existence in VR.” Talk presented at the Consumer Virtual Reality (CVR) Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May.
Prpa, M., Stepanova, E. R., Schiphorst, T., Riecke, B. E., & Pasquier, P. (2020). Inhaling and Exhaling: How Technologies Can Perceptually Extend our Breath Awareness. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376183
Prpa, Mirjana, Kivanc Tatar, Philippe Pasquier, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2016. “Pulse Breath Water.” Exhibition presented at the P.O.E.M.A. by Regina Miranda, Oi Futuro Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July.
Prpa, Mirjana, Kivanc Tatar, Philippe Pasquier, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2016. “Pulse Breath Water.” Exhibition presented at the scores+traces (group exhibition), One Art Space, NY, USA, March.
Stepanova, Ekaterina R., Denise Quesnel, Alexandra Kitson, Mirjana Prpa, and Bernhard E. Riecke. 2017. “Virtual Reality as a Tool for Inducing and Understanding Transformative Experiences.” Poster presented at the Psychonomic Society 58th Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada, November.