Being That You Love explores the relationship between the body, emotions, and virtual space through an interactive experience that employs biofeedback and neurofeedback technologies. The work connects the user's physiological processes—brain activity, heart rate, electrodermal skin activity, and other biological signals—with a virtual environment that continuously transforms in response to their psychophysical states.

The starting point of the work is the question: how real is virtual reality for the human brain and body? Although we rationally understand the difference between physical and simulated spaces, our subconscious physiological responses often suggest otherwise. Fear, excitement, sadness, tension, or a sense of presence can emerge regardless of whether a stimulus originates from the material or virtual world. The work explores precisely this zone of overlap, where the boundary between the real and the virtual becomes unstable.

The virtual environment is based on a three-dimensional model of Zagreb’s Jarun Lake, reconstructed from digital cartographic data. Stripped of textures and everyday functional markers, Jarun is transformed into a reflective landscape that feels simultaneously familiar and alien. For the artist, it represents a space of personal memories, growing up, friendships, love, and loss, while, on a collective level, it functions as a site of shared memory within the city of Zagreb.

During the experience, the user moves through the virtual space, while their biological data directly shapes the environment. Brain activity influences the flow of time and the transition between day and night; heart rate determines the appearance and structure of clouds; while electrodermal activity alters weather conditions, atmosphere, and the intensity of changes within the landscape. The virtual space thus ceases to be a static representation of the world and becomes a kind of mirror reflecting the user’s internal processes.

The title of the work derives from the ambiguity of the English word ‘being’, which denotes both a living entity and a state of existence. The phrase A Being That You Love can refer to a person we love, but also to a state of being that we cherish or long for after it has disappeared. Personal experiences of loss and the process of mourning were among the starting points for the development of the project. Yet, the virtual space is used here not as an escape from reality, but as a place of encounter with memory, absence, and emotional transformation.

Unlike the dominant applications of biometric technologies in the domains of surveillance, optimisation, and control, the work uses physiological data as an artistic medium. The body here serves not as an object of measurement, but as an active co-creator of the virtual environment. The resulting landscape is not a representation of the physical world, but a temporary reflection of the relationship between body, mind, technology, and memory.

A Being That You Love approaches virtual reality as an emotional space in which inner states become visible, while the boundaries between the imagined, the remembered, and the real remain open.