Alpha Lab, 2013
Collaboration with James P. Brown
Combining neurofeedback training with participatory art, and electronic music, AlphaLab explores the possibilities of a unique form of electronic art, in which attention, experience and compositional form become radically entwined.
Participants experience this work whilst resting on their backs, on specially designed beds fitted with vibro-tactile sub-bass speakers that augment the biofeedback sound they hear in their headphones, with low frequency vibrations into the back of their body. Electronic soundscapes controlled by changes in Alpha brainwave activity are used to guide participants to a place of intense but wakeful stillness.
Interviews and diagrams recorded with participants after their interaction document the range of experiences and reflections supported by this unusual human-computer interaction.
AlphaLab explores new connections connections between consciousness, subconsciousness, creativity and electronic art – combining experiential and interactive approaches with documentary and ethnographic aesthetics, to explore in a concrete and highly focussed way, the dynamics of consciousness itself as a material for aesthetic enquiry – in this case the open-foccused states of attention uniquely supported by Alpha neurofeedback training.
Event Dates
June 7th–10th, 6pm – 10pm
Address: Shop 2.04, 140 George Street,
The Rocks (behind the MCA),
Circular Quay, Sydney,
New South Wales, Australia.
Credits
George Khut: Interaction Design, Installation, Sound Design, Interviews
James P. Brown: Interaction Design, Sound Design, Interviews, Photography
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Sophie Greenfeild (Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Rocks Popup); Alinta Krauth and Andrea Dixon (laboratory assistant facilitators); and dLux Media Arts.
But seriously, as I leave the building, I realise: this sound, whether grumbling, crackling, smooth or harmonic, is me. It holds a mirror to who I am, in a particular situation. All the conflicting feelings are reflected; the unstoppable ping-ponging between awareness, in-the-moment-ness, thought, peace, the arts-journalist self, the curious self, the self-judging self, the playful self. And I really wish I could take it home and do it more, learn to really find those (Alpha) waves.…
AlphaLab renders a particular experience of the brain and the mind accessible – one that for all but the mystic is usually beyond perception. For me, it was challenging – but an incredibly illuminating, warm and embracing experience nonetheless.
- Urszula Dawkins, RealTime Arts ISEA 2013 blog
