For my final project, I am planning to use MAX grid matrices, a heart rate sensor, and a camera to convey the metaphor/idea of “We bring life to the things around us“. More on this theme at the end.
My plan is to use the 3D grid matrix plane from my Audio-controlled animation and have the deformations controlled by the user’s heart beat. The heart sensor (which I’m hoping to borrow from the Prof, or get one on amazon for $8) will connect to MAX via Arduino.
The heartbeat will then create a wave that ripples through the flat grid matrix. As it does, it will reveal 3D objects that were previously hidden. Think Han Solo carbonite. I plan to use bump/height maps for that.
The 3D objects revealed by the pulse will actually come from a camera. I’ll put effects on the camera to turn it into a height/bump-map format (at worst just gray-scale).
Previous Grid Matrix 
This but on the matrix 
The camera = Bump Map
I found a youtube MAX tutorial that uses height maps to deform a single flat plane (below), and it goes into a jit.matrix. I used a jit.matrix for the grid matrix also, perhaps I can combine them?
To explain the theme of this piece a bit more:
I am using the heartbeat to reveal what the camera sees on a plane. Without a heartbeat, the grid plane would be featureless. Touching on topics of depression and suicide, this is a play on how in order for us to experience the world around us, we need to be alive and engaged. Without a pulse, we lose the ability to see the world around us, and everything else.