As part of our festival tour, we've enlisted Radiant Human aura photographer Christina Lonsdale to snap photos of concertgoers who visit our traveling Pods, the relaxation chambers packed with recharging stations for you and your devices.

Auras are electromagnetic fields that surround an individual, and it is a belief in some circles that these personal charges can reveal the spiritual state of the subject. Lonsdale's camera corrals these colored wavelengths. She then can interpret their hues and what they say about you.

We spoke with the artist and energy reader about her project, Radiant Human, her fascinating upbringing on a commune and how the digital age can be a source of modern spirituality. Color us intrigued.

How does aura photography work?

The camera works on the principle that we all have electricity in our body and that electricity radiates past our skin's surface. This camera uses hand sensors that pick up this electricity and through a proprietary algorithm, matches this electricity to a color, then that color comes out as a second exposure. It takes just about 60 seconds for the photo to develop on film and I think that is really one of the treasures about this process. This is on film! It's one of a kind! There are no doubles, no jpegs that can be duplicated and therefore potentially become disposable. This photograph is as unique and singular as you are.

Your mother was an energy painter. How did your upbringing steer you toward this career path?

Since before I was born my mother has been painting the auras of the spirits she interacts with in her meditations and dreams. As a kid I remember interrupting her painting time and it was a big deal, it was worse than swearing. I never did it again, but I was always curious and perhaps a bit jealous of this mysterious world she was a part of. So you can imagine that through my own creative process making this world approachable and inclusive became a really validating experience that I am really passionate about. I don't care if you have been doing reiki and yoga for 25 years or if you've never even heard of a chakra before, I want this to be a level playing field and a place that focuses on exploration.

My background has always been a balance between two worlds. I was an '80s baby that was born into a commune that my dad started in the '60s. We lived in the desert because my parents were basically outsiders trying to build a new life where they could live life simply. There was a guru there that I guess you would call a "spiritual father" to all of us. We had goats and chickens, my mom made fresh tortillas every morning, and then the commune had some drama and we moved to California. My mom worked for the first time, we got a TV, a computer, and then the internet happened. Cell phones got big right when my dad was teaching me how to use the tarot. My life has always been walking between new age and the digital age.

You refer to your practice as "new media for self(ie)‐actualization." Can you explain this description? How do you see digital technologies affecting our modern identities?

It's impossible to have a constructive dialog about modern identity without discussing technology and the use of social media, and I believe its effects are endless and lasting in ways we are still in the beginning of understanding. There's a lot to say here, so without discussing an entire thesis, I want to focus exclusively on the relationship of this project, Instagram, this new self(ie) and the magic that happens when you talk to a stranger about how you are perceived.

This project is all about exploring the human atmosphere: it's about embracing the idea that we are more than just a physical body and that a huge component of our personal identity is placed on what we are projecting out to the world.

This is already embraced by popular culture in common language like "good vibes" or "weird vibes," but you rarely get to see your own [vibe] documented, let alone have an opportunity to talk about it honestly and share it with your community. This is where it becomes self actualizing. This is a platform to discover how you identify with your own energy and how you can use technology to create a positive change in your own perception of yourself.

One of the most powerful things about community is that it can also reflect who you are and what you believe in. This is where social media comes in, and I think can be a really powerful tool in introducing like minds that otherwise would not know about each other. Selfies are great at telling the world, "this is me in this moment," and this project takes this statement one step further and says "this is me in this moment and this is how I am responding to it." In terms of self actualization, this can be an extremely powerful expression, especially when you are able to share it with your community, and find others that are responding in similar ways.

Tell us about how the colors work and what they mean. Will the colors change depending on the type of day one is having-like a mood ring?

First off, mood rings are temperature based and don't say much about where you are energetically other then that you might have cold hands! The technology behind the process we use is a lot more complex and so is the way we derive information from it.

Each photo has three sections; everything from the ears up represents conscious thought (and typically these colors change faster than the other areas), whereas the lower left represents your internal dynamic (or self) and the lower right represents what you project outward, your persona or the relationship you have with the surface world.

When you get into what the colors mean, that's where it gets really interesting, a subject very rarely produces just one color, let alone just one hue, so a large part of what I find so interesting is how these colors interact with each other and how this illustrates the complexities of being a human.

What happens during a reading?

The process is lead by the traveling nature of this project and the community that supports it. We stop in cities all over the world, either for private events or store­-hosted pop-ups. If it's a store-hosted pop-up, we can invite our followers and I love doing that! There is this warm, fuzzy, proud feeling I get when I think that through social media, we can create a real experience that produces something tangible together.
Once we are all set up, guests arrive and I photograph them, and they can choose to have a dialogue with me about the colors. This is where science and mysticism meets, which is a pretty grey area, and people relate to that experience in different places on that spectrum, but very rarely do I get someone who is completely disconnected from that.

I still get excited every time I see a photo, I can't help it. I love seeing people's reactions when they see what they've created with their energy. I love that there is this energetic portrait with your physical portrait, and this dialog that reaffirms a lot of what people already know about themselves but they just need to hear someone say it. To have a photo illustrating how you are actually broadcasting yourself out to the world is a really powerful image and that is something I will never get tired of.

How can knowing about your aura improve your life?

Perception affects our concept of reality, if we are able to see ourselves in new ways then we will be able to see our reality in new ways.

Catch the Radiant Human project at these Pod festival locations:

SXSW - Austin - March 17-19

Beale Street Music Festival - Memphis - April 29-May 1

Shaky Knees Music Festival - Atlanta - May 13-15

BottleRock - Napa - May 27-29