Le Cube, Garges-lès-Gonesse, France
October 11th, 2023
The prologue of Transformation III has started with a series of performances, talks and demonstrations by EEGsynth, notably during a residency at La Générale, the Laboratoire artistique politique et social in Paris.
Two performance were organized at Le Cube, Garges-lès-Gonesse, France. The first one occurred on October 11th, 2023, and showcased Steady-State [version for two] with Samon Takahashi on EEG and Stephen Whitmarsh on modular synthesizer.
Steady-State is a new experimental sound performance first developed for JIM2023. It builds on a decade of experiments integrating brain activity into sound sculpting and musical performance, but takes a conceptual and sonic turn from previous works. The commonly used paradigms of voluntary control, “performance” and (conscious) relaxation are abandoned to subjectification and domination. Rather than relying on consensual, even conscious performance, these experiments explore resistance and defeat through a cortical state of sound and visual patterns. Instead of realizing positive feedback loops of musical pleasure, Steady-State explores de-personalization, noise, violence, and subjection to technological control.
Electroencephalography (EEG) shows endogenous alpha oscillations (~10Hz) in a state of (intentional) relaxation, which has been used as an artistic paradigm for sound performance since Music for Solo Performer by Alvin Lucier and Edmond Dewan (1965). In Steady-State, a so-called steady-state cortical response is induced by repetitive visual and auditory stimuli. Brain responses to these repetitive stimuli can interfere with alpha activity when presented at similar frequencies, or induce new exogenous brain oscillations through cortical entrainment. In the steady state, cortical steady state responses and alpha activity are measured by EEG (Explore, courtesy of Mentalab GmbH), analyzed by EEGsynth, and used to create negative feedback and interference loops by modulating hardware synthesizers and photic (potentially epileptogenic) stimuli.
Whitmarsh, 2023