Mapping Hyperbiological Space

The hyperbiological space is an augmented peripersonal⁶¹ space in a

conceptual relationship of space, sound, body and physiological data (EEG).

Considerations in higher-dimensional spaces are not discussed here, although research made in such areas is useful in understanding and perceiving

abstracted dimensions related to a space where biological information is included, as described by Kiku:

Some of the inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s ideas most likely came from the great nineteenth-century German mathematician Georg Bernhard Riemann, who was the first to lay the mathematical foundation of geometries in higher-dimensional space. Riemann changed the course of mathematics for the next century by

demonstrating that these universes, as strange as they may appear to the layperson, are completely self-consistent and obey their own inner logic. (Kiku 1995: 22, 23)

The space sensed through neurofeedback by the EEG performer includes the idea of the ‘higher-dimensional space’ expressed by Kiku. It appears when the performer hears, in a resonant space, the sonic result created by his own EEG.

The related environment emerging from the process between sound, space and neurofeedback is the hyperbiological space. Clark describes the relationship between the brain, the body, and the world as follows:

The brain's role is that it acts as a mediating factor in a variety of complex and iterated processes which continually loop between brain, body and technological environment (…) The intelligent process just is the spatially and temporally extended one which zigzags between brain, body and world (…) The machinery of contemporary human reason thus turns out to be rooted in a

biologically incremental progression while simultaneously existing on the far side of a precipitous cliff in cognitive-architectural space.

(Clark, n.d: 3, 6)

The hyperbiological space is a step after the virtual space explored and defined by the sound installation Kinetism in Section 4.4 (where the virtual space is

approached as an internal subjective experience). Now, in contrast,

hyperbiological space is a complex dynamic subjective internal and external space in a closed loop provided by neurofeedback. Ascott proposes the term

‘cyberception’ in explaining the relationship between our selves and the mediated world, and how we are augmented:

Cyberception involves a convergence of conceptual and perceptual processes in which the connectivity of telematic networks

plays a formative role. Perception is the awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation. The cybernet, the sum of all the interactive computer-mediated systems and telematic

networks in the world, is part of our sensory apparatus. It redefines our individual body, just as it connects all our bodies into a planetary whole. (Ascott 2003: 320, 321)

Although the experience of augmentation of the self in Music for Brainwaves does not involve the telematic mediation through the Internet as proposed by Ascott, such a network already exists in the relationship among body,

physiological data, sound, and space through neurofeedback.

3.5.1.2. EEG, Neurofeedback and Brain Computer Interfaces EEG (electroencephalogram) measurements were first discovered by the German neurologist Hans Berger in 1924. EGG is the electrical activity of the firing neurons in the brain, and EEG measurements are mainly present today in the medical field for their role as:

• Neurofeedback

By watching and listening to real-time multimedia representations of its own electrical activity, the brain can improve its functionality and even its structure. (Budzynski et al. 2009: xxi)

• Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI)

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) monitor the activity of the brain for measurements. In the last decade it has improved as an extension of the body in order to control computers, prostheses or wheelchairs.

However, BCI appeared in many other domains such as video games, media art and music, among other fields. The next decade could unlock other

opportunities, according to Lance:

Based on advances in sensor technologies, analysis algorithms, artificial intelligence, multi-aspect sensing of the brain, behaviour, and environment through pervasive technologies, and computing algorithms will be capable of collecting and analysing brain data for extended time periods and are expected to become prevalent in many aspects of daily life. (Lance et al. 2012: 13)

3.5.1.3. Background

The major influence of Music for Brainwaves comes from Alvin Lucier’s piece, Music for Solo Performer. The technology was originally for military research and had no link with music, as mentioned by Lucier. The points of convergence rely on the idea of control and energy data present as a main component in Music for Brainwaves: The control of the body by the meditative state includes the energy (here as EGG) transferred to an algorithm:

Dewan described to me this phenomenon that had to do with

visualization, that by putting yourself in a non-visual state, it would be called a meditative state now, you could release the potential of the alpha that is in your head. It’s a very small amount, but it would become perceptible, at least to an amplifier. (…) Actually, it doesn’t sound like anything because it’s ten hertz and below audibility; it isn’t a sound idea, it’s a control or energy idea. (Lucier 1995: 48, 50) During the same period, composers and artists were collaborating with engineers to integrate new technology and thus discover new tools for new forms of music and art. A noteworthy example is a series of performances in New York in 1966 called 9 Evenings: Art, Theatre and Engineering developed by artists and engineers and ‘endeavoured to reassess a legendary series of ten experimental performances that was presented at New York’s 69^th

Regiment Armory on East 25^th Street in October, 1966’ (Garwood 2007: 36).

Among others there were the performances of Cage’s Variations VII:

Cage was performing an unscored work for the first time, attempting

conceptual. This particular work highlighted the soup of invisible frequencies in the realm of immediate experience. (Ibid: 40)

Music for Brainwaves relates to Cage’s work Variations VII through the ‘soup of invisible frequencies in the realm of immediate experience’ described by

Garwood, since the EEG performance includes invisible frequencies from the body performer into the performance space. Consequently, the vision of Music for Brainwaves relates to an attempt to bring brainwaves into the musical realm, which includes the notion of making an invisible activity perceptible for the audience. The quest includes long-term collaboration with scientists and engineers in order to develop highly specialised skills and provide new opportunities to investigate new questions in art, science and technology.

David Rosenboom, Richard Teitelbaum and, later, Pauline Oliveros explored EEG for musical purposes as well around the same period, as described by Branden:

Richard Teitelbaum would make use of amplified brain waves in both Organ Music and In Tune of 1968; and David Rosenboom, the

composer perhaps most closely allied with brain wave music, would also begin his experiments in that area at the State University of New York in Stony Brook in 1968 (...) The composer, wired-up in various ways, would become the performer of and primary listener to the sounds produced. (Branden 2011: 132)

In addition Rosenboom describes the first experiments from the 1930s with EEG technology:

While listening to his own alpha rhythm presented through a loudspeaker, Adrian tried to correlate the subjective impression of hearing the alpha come and go with the activity of his eyes (Adrian and Mathews 1934). Inevitably, artists with an experimental bent would come to apply this – and subsequent developments in brain science - to both artistic production and research in artistic

perception. (Rosenboom 1990: 48)

Improvement of technology leads to more affordable devices; advances in neuroscience research from the last decade provide a growing interest in and rediscovering of music produced with EEG. Multiple directions emerged. Among

them, and in line with Music for Brainwaves, notable examples may be found in the work of:

• GX Jupiter Larsen and his ‘Wellenfeld’ quartet

The quartet includes also Joke Lanz, Rudolf Eb.Er and Mike Dando. The sound and the procedures developed by this performance are close to those of Music for Brainwaves:

The performance took place without prior tests or

rehearsals. The performer develops and gains control over his own brainwave patterns during the performance, by listening to the sonic results of his mental activity. By changing electric impulses of the brain during meditative and ecstatic trance, the performer begins to sculpt the sound through the mind alone. (Eb.Er, Lanz, Jupitter-Larsen and Dando 2014)  

• Stelarc

In our correspondence, Stelarc responded thus about his use of EEG:

My use of amplified body signals and sounds, including EEG- both for sound and control purposes- occurred primarily from 1972 to

approximately 1986. These were amplified live as part of body installation performances (and from 1980 with my Third Hand).

I do not have a music background although I've always used sound in my performances. So there are no scores as such. The performances began when the body was switched on and they ended when it was switched off.

The sounds varied through partly physiological control (control of

breathing, state of relaxation and tension and muscle tension) and partly through body fatigue. So a cacophony of sound was generated that varied in complexity and density depending on what sounds were switched on and off and were happening separately or synchronously.

Furthermore, and according to an interview in 2001 with Linz, Stelarc mentioned:

In the late ’60s there was a lot of interest in biofeedback mechanisms (…) For me there was a desire to make sound as part of a body's motion. It wasn't a case of making the piece more dramatic through the use of sound, but rather that I'd always taken a multisensory approach to art. The premise of amplifying the body sounds was to

Music for Brainwaves relies, in terms of sonic aesthetics and improvisation, on works produced by GX Jupitter Larsen. The piece also relates to

Stelarc’s views with its aim ‘to articulate what's happening inside the body, and the possibility of monitoring these signals enabled a kind of structural relationship’.

Music for Brain Waves is influenced structurally by action music,⁶² since the work addresses the process of making decisions about artistic systems and how the body replaces the art object in determined environments. LaBelle cites Cage regarding this:

Cage addressed the very act of making decisions, the artist being understood not so much as the maker of objects but as an individual in the act of making decisions as to what, how, and where art take place and the systems by which to initiate its production (…) In this sense, what follows from a Cagean outlook is an emphasis on process (…) The body literally comes to replace the art object, for it pushes up into the realm of form to such a degree as to explode definition and the literal lines of material presence. (LaBelle 2006: 54, 55)

Following LaBelle’s claims, Music for Brainwaves includes not only the body as a work of art, but also the decisions from the composer articulated within the development of the performance through the following

procedures and decisions:

1. Find a very resonant space;

2. Wear the EEG device and start the algorithm;

3. Sit for as long as you feel it necessary;

4. Then lie on the floor, for as long as you feel it necessary;

62 ‘Action-based music emphasizes the artistic exploration of mechanical actions, which are used to control all aspects of composition, including its conception, form, instrumentation and instrumental design, performance and score. Actions applied to sounding objects and actions of environmental phenomena thus can become the principal means for musical expression. The composer prioritizes exploration of performative actions as opposed to investigation of particular sonic parameters in the creation of this music (….) While performing action-based music, the player is, in fact, often instructed about how to and what to perform rather than what sonic effect to achieve’ (Kojs 2009: 286).

5. Sit again for as long as you feel it necessary;

6. Take a text and read it mentally;

7. End the performance or start again from the beginning if you feel it necessary.

3.5.2. Context of the Work Itself

During the last decade a growing interest appeared in EEG interfaces and their potential in medical and the gaming industries, media art and music⁶³. Today’s technology is lighter and more affordable, and the interest resides in exploring potentials for:

• Music composition by going forward in the man / machine interaction and focusing on an ecosystem defined as hyperbiological space in the actual chapter;

• Including neuroscience research as an important component to push forward the creative process between art and science through long-term collaborations (Blanke, Forcucci and Dieguez 2009).