Paras Kaul - Brainwave Chick, Brain-driven Music Performance 2001

The video shows the visualisation in one of Kaul's performances at SIGGRAPH 2001.
In each performance, the computer was connected to nontraditional musical instruments, and Kaul, wearing the headband, would sit quietly before the audience, allowing her brain waves to be processed through the instruments. At times, the sounds came in steady, ominous tones from the lower register of the musical scale. At other times, her brain wave frequencies produced light trills from the upper register. She varied the sound by moving between states of mind.
Mark Applebaum would then respond to these sounds with instruments he had designed. Because music produces an emotional response in the listener, Kauls mind then responded to Applebaums music, creating a musical feedback loop between them. Their performance, she explains, was a kind of nonverbal communication. It felt like he was inside my mind. For the audience, their music blended to create a nontraditional, at times discordant, sound.
After taking a couple of graduate courses in music composition from Applebaum, Kaul began to experiment with improvisation herself. Hooked up to the IBVA system, she would improvise on her digital keyboard in response to the notes produced by her brain waves. She eventually produced a CD and music video called Streaming Consciousness, which has been featured by the Sonic Circuits International Festival of Electronic Music and Art.

In collaboration with Mark Applebaum.
More infor: http://www.brainwavechick.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• biofeedback
• art
• brain
• wave
• interface
• visualisation
• sound
• performance
• music
• improvisation