Mutations of Presence explores spectrality through sequencing bio-feedback to a machine; revealing electrical signal of the body as robotic gesture.

The work establishes a relational configuration of human and machine, made up of electrical signals, bio-feedback and painterly gestures. 

 The process was developed using data recorded using an eeg headset, a computer vision system tracking the position of the body to feed into a custom robotic collaborator. 

Theme: Spectrality
Collaborators: Sougwen Chung & D.O.U.G._4. (Drawing Operations Unit:  Generation_4).

How can we build alternative configurations of technology towards the cognitive development of the human subject?

Mutations Paintings

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08

Artefact Nº 8
2021, Paint on Canvas,
44 x 34 in

For the past few years, I’ve been developing a meditation practice.  During lockdown especially, it provided a centering ritual amidst the isolation and uncertainty. I learned it was possible to record the electrical signals of my brainwaves during meditation using an EEG Headset. I was curious about what that would look like, and how it would feel to draw with it. 

01

Artefact Nº 1
2021, Paint on Canvas,
44 x 34 in

“We do not have at our disposal computers capable of following the flow of cultures, the poetic nodes, the dynamics of languages, the phases of cultures in confrontation. Should we hope that our imaginary construct of Relation might some day be "confirmed" in formulas we can read on the monitor screen? Can accident, which is the joy of poetics, be tamed through circuits?”

— Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation (1997)

06

Artefact Nº 6
2021, Paint on Canvas,
44 x 34 in

04

Artefact Nº 4
2021, Paint on Canvas,
44 x 34 in

Exhbition & Performance

The artefacts engage with a practice of daily meditation, embodied through painterly gestures on the space of a canvas. The first performance took place during the covid-19 lockdown of 2020 in Basel, Switzerland.

Painting performances are 20-40 minutes in length. The collaboration is entirely improvised and showcases a process of human & robotic co-creation.

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Research

The process was developed using data recorded using an eeg headset, a computer vision system tracking the position of the body to feed into a custom robotic collaborator.

STATES OF FLOW

I recorded my brain waves during experiments in meditation techniques ranging from vipassana (mantra), aural (sound), qi gong and visualisation approaches. By measuring EEG fluctuations across the spectrum of alpha, beta, delta, gamma, theta, the extracted data is converted into kinematic positions resulting in a visual representation of the brain's electrical signals.

By recording my brainwaves daily,  the fluctuations of my brain in different states were recorded as electrical signals, and could be observed. I discovered elevated states of alphawaves during meditation, particularly when I was able to achieve a state of flow. 

BIOLOGY AS ELECTRICAL CURRENT & SIGNAL

In Mutations of Presence (Generation 4), I turned inward, looking for ways to think about my own biology, as electrical current and signal.  It’s part of my interest in exploring the development of relational systems that surprise me, and challenge my own preconceptions of what technology is meant to do, and how.

BEYOND AUTOMATION

By starting to integrate my biofeedback with the drawing system I'm hoping to create a record of this moment of time in isolation, suspension, looking out into the world at-a-distance. Centering rituals in catastrophe. Adaptation (beyond automation)

READING LIST

Glissant, Edouard. Poetics of Relation. The University of Michigan Press, 1997.

CREDITS

Creative and technical direction & execution
by Sougwen Chung

Created during Laurenz Haus Residency with the support of the Schaulager Foundation in Basel, Switzerland.