How MC&V turned live brain data into generative art for Outride

Exclusive – Outride, a US-based non-profit founded by Specialized Bicycle Components, supports research, programs and advocacy exploring how cycling can improve brain health and wellbeing. For the Outride Summit, co-hosted at Specialized’s headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, the organisation partnered with Australian creative AI production company MC&V to bring its neuroscience research to life for attendees.

Outride has spent years researching the relationship between cycling and brain health. The brief was to translate that complex science into an experience people could understand intuitively, without relying on technical terminology, conventional charts or dense scientific explanations. The experience also needed to work in real time, respond to each participant individually, and create a meaningful reason for people to engage further with Outride’s research.

Live EEG data is complex and difficult for a general audience to interpret, and presenting the raw information risked creating another scientific interface that would need explaining before participants could understand its relevance. The team needed to balance several priorities: maintaining a meaningful connection to the underlying live data, creating a visually compelling experience, building an intuitive interaction, and delivering a technically reliable system for a live event using real-time data — all within three weeks, from initial concept and design through to development and on-site delivery.

MC&V’s solution was Brain on Bikes, a real-time experience that transformed each participant’s live EEG brain activity into an evolving generative artwork as they rode a stationary bike. Rather than presenting brain activity through graphs, the system translated the data into a visual language of movement, energy, composition and form. As the participant rode, the artwork changed in response to their individual signals, allowing them to experience the connection between cycling and brain activity in a more immediate and emotional way. At the end of the ride, each participant received a personalised digital artwork generated from their own session.

The project brought together neuroscience, engineering, creative technology, generative art and interaction design within a single production workflow. Vibe coding and AI-generated visual explorations helped the team rapidly build, test and refine the experience within the compressed timeframe, prototyping different visual behaviours and exploring how live data could influence the artwork in ways that remained clear, expressive and engaging. Human creative decision-making shaped the visual language, interaction design, pacing and overall user experience, with AI’s role limited to accelerating iteration and connecting the technical and creative components.

Brain on Bikes transformed scientific data from something participants were asked to interpret into something they could personally experience. The personalised artwork gave each participant a tangible record of their ride and created an accessible entry point into Outride’s wider research on cycling and brain health. The experience debuted at the Outride Summit as the first iteration of a scalable platform, with future versions set to expand the interaction, incorporate richer data inputs and support applications across events, education, research communication and public engagement.

As organisations collect more complex data, communicating what that data means is becoming as important as analysing it. Brain on Bikes demonstrates how AI and creative technology can bridge the gap between specialist research and public understanding by turning abstract information into a real-time experience that feels personal, intuitive and memorable.

Client: Outride and Specialized Bicycle Components
Executive Director: Esther Walker (Outride)
Global Brand Creative Director: Shravan Hedge (Specialized Bicycle Components)
Associate Graphic Designer: Megan Whitehouse (Specialized Bicycle Components)
Leader of Global Brand Design: Pete Panciera (Specialized Bicycle Components)

Production Company: MC&V
Production & Delivery: Marie-Céline Merret Wirström & Vinne Schifferstein Vidal
Creative Director: Richard Swan

Register for FREE HERE and receive the Campaign Brief Daily Bulletin and/or the global Best Ads Best of the Week Bulletin.              Subscribe to Campaign Brief Magazine.

#More Creative News   #No paywalls   #No annual membership fees

Subscribe to Portfolio & Reel for current listings of Australian and NZ ad agency and production company leadership and key personnel