As this was my first introduction to brain wave controlled performance i was quite amazed by the collaboration between Maxime De La Rochefoucault (Automates Ki) and Andrew Brouse titled “Bio Music. The piece was performed at the (SAT) Society for Arts and Technology for the pure data convention last weekend. The build up to the performance was intense as Brouse attached bio/sensors to this freshly shaved head, which seems to take 30mins. Behind him a selection of Maxime’s robotic instruments and a large piece of hardware that i guessed did the brain wave processing. The piece started with Brouse - eyes closed and breathing deeply, then one by one the robotic instruments began to play, building up to the point where all the instruments were playing together.
Brouse continued to concentrate his breathing which ‘apparently’ allowed him control over his brain waves. Not convinced i walked around the back to see what kind of PD patch they were running. Sure enough it had nothing to do with EEG signals , just a mixer type patch for the audio. During this time i missed the finale in which Brouse was able to turn all instruments off at once!
Myth, man or Magic?
A selection of Maxime De La Rochefoucault’s “Automates Ki”
Andrew Brouse
google video here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4968700469119720679
September 2, 2007 at 5:51 am
hey Wade - are you saying this was all a hoax? smoke and mirrors and PD? Cheers, Garth
September 2, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Hi Garth
because there was a suspension of belief set up and because of my knowledge of other peoples work in this field, like George Khut’s i believe it was a real performance. It could also be a hoax and i would still believe it could be possible, i guess i would like to try for myself.
cheers
wade
September 11, 2007 at 7:50 am
> Myth, man or Magic?
A bit of all three.
Myth: The fade ins and fade-outs were in fact controlled by the Pd mixer (yes, it was just a mixer).
Man: Yes, it was me plugged into that EEG machine (Grass c.196
and my brainwaves were controlling all the moment-to-moment changes in the music, just not the fade-ins fade-outs
Magic: There is of course a magical element to all this which I find heightened when playing with responsive instruments like the Automates Ki (I wish someone would invent a “virtual instrument” which came close the fascination of the Automates.)
By the way, to be officially correct, we were perfoming a version of “Music for Solo Performer” by Alvin Lucier.
cheers,
Andrew