Bell Labs' 'Only Human' Art Project Brings People Together Through Tech

Late on the afternoon in April, Lisa Park stood in the middle of a cavernous room at Mana Contemporary, a factory-turned-gallery in Jersey City, New Jersey, holding hands with her intern. Beneath their feet, three pothole-sized metal plates were nestled into a patch of fake grass with wires running from them to a series of sensors that measure electricity. In front of the women, a 19 by 12-foot, semi-translucent screen stretched across the room shielding the tangle of wires, computers, and lights that hid behind it. Park, a multimedia artist known for turning brainwaves and heartbeats into performance art, gripped the woman's hand, and in tandem, they glanced up at the screen where a 3-D rendering of a leafless cherry blossom tree glowed in the dark. "It's supposed to bloom," Park said with a hint of frustration. The two women held each other tighter and waited.