EXTERNAL EXHIBITS
MYNDPLAY
MyndPlay is the world’s first mind controlled media player and platform which connects your computer to your mind with EEG BrainWave technology to allow viewers an engaging, innovative new level of interactivity by allowing you to control, influence and direct a video or movie using only your mind.
MyndPlay also provides you with detailed brainwave feedback and the ability to develop mindfulness which is greater mental awareness and emotional control making it the ultimate brain entertainment and training platform.<
THE CONSCIOUSNESS FIELD
The Consciousness Field is a traveling interactive installation where ideas about what consciousness is are collected. The pompoms represent the neurons of the human brain. The creator Maria Lopez gathers all the definitions of consciousness, to conduct a frequency analysis and a word pattern emerges. she then compare these from place to place. Maria intends to have a giant Consciousness Field once she has taken the installation to several countries with definitions in different languages. The Consciousness Field is a piece of Experimental Anthropology where art and science interlay. Maria is an artist/ anthropologist with a interest in neuroscience. In 2009 she declared: ‘Cartesian Dualism is Dead: Cogito et Sentio Ergo Sum’ (I think and feel therefore I am). Maria has exhibited and curated in London and New York. Born in 1977 in Portugal. Moved to London in 1996.
BISTABLE IMAGES
David Carmel is a lecturer in psychology at The University of Edinburgh. He is interested in consciousness – how brain activity creates it, which functions require it and which don’t, and why we have it at all. To answer these questions, he focuses mostly on visual awareness, examining what distinguishes conscious and unconscious visual experience, and how awareness interacts with faculties like attention and emotion. His ideas on the brain and mind have appeared in Scientific American Mind and fivebooks.com. David will be demonstrating a number of techniques used by neuroscientists to investigate the mysteries of consciousness.
ILLUSIONS OF MOTION
Professor of Vision Science George Mather will be presenting some of his interesting research on illusions at State of Mind. His primary research interests are in the perception of visual movement and of visual art. Accurate and rapid detection of image motion is vital for survival, and George’s research on motion aims to uncover the specialized neural circuits in the brain which mediate our ability to detect movement. This knowledge can be exploited to trick the brain into signaling movement when none is present, leading to illusions of motion. Visual art often attempts to recreate a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional picture plane. It does this by means of pictorial cues that indicate depth and distance. These cues can also be exploited to reveal the hidden inferences which underlie our ability to see depth and distance.Go to top
PHILIPPA STANTON
Philippa Stanton is a local artist who also happens to be a Synesthete which means that Philippa can see sound in shape and colour where others can only hear it, allowing her to create unique portraits of people’s voices. In her own words: “Synaesthesia is a merging of the senses. I merge vision and sound, mostly, for my paintings, but arrays of textured, colourful shapes also accompany every taste, smell and tactile feeling I experience. They don’t intrude on my day to day seeing; only enhance my inner abstract vision. I can choose to visit these forms deeply or just have them peppering my inner mind.”
Phillipa is currently working on taste paintings for the Open Houses in Brighton in May. She is painting a series of the tastes and aromas, which she will be presenting at State of Mind, and will be getting people to try and guess which taste corresponds to which painting. She has already tried this on a few people and they’ve been getting them right which is very encouraging!
HYPNAGOGIC LIGHT EXPERIENCE
Using complex patterns of flashing lights the attendee experiences deep relaxation, increase awareness and even out of body experiences. For many years Dr. Dirk Proeckl has worked in collaboration with Dr. Engelbert Winkler on the topic of developing the Hypnagogic Light Experience, through carefully applied knowledge of neurophysiological and psychological processes, including the implications for our understanding of synesthesia. The Light Experience has won the Gold Medal at the International Invention Fair in Kuwait, 2010, and the Bronze Medal at the International Invention Fair at Genf, 2010.
LUCIANA HAILL
Neurofeedback artist Luciana Haill will be using attendees own brainwaves to create beautiful visualizations of their neural activity. Haill, AIR at The CCNR Sussex University is a member of SAN and the NeuroNetwork, with over 17 years IBVA experience and is involved with other Neurofeedback and creative groups. A special ingredient in facilitating cutting edge projects with brainwave triggered effects, as an interactive artist she performs worldwide including The Royal Institute, BAFTA, The Dana Centre and Pahoa, Hawaii.
MYTHS, MORPHS & MEMES
Myths, Morphs and Memes present ‘Groupmind’ where visitors are invited to contribute to collaborative, cumulative cultural experiments. We are interested in how ideas and information, in the shape of stories and drawings, are transmitted through minds across generations. We invite you to enter into a communicative activity which has consequences – you may influence the behaviour of others! Psychologist, Dr. Julie Coultas will be looking at the cultural transmission of myths. Why do we pass on some information whilst forgetting other aspects of a story? Artist, Rachel Cohen will be using drawings to demonstrate mimetic evolution in action. Is it possible to reproduce a drawing from instructions, like a recipe? Psychologist, Dr. Nicola Yuill will be inviting you to use the iPad to play a game of picture consequences as the surrealists did in searching for the ‘unconscious reality in the personality of the group’. Artist, Patricia Thornton will be encouraging you to take part in creating a collaborative morphing map.
FUGUE
Fugue by Gordana Novakovic is the result of an on-going project which provides a new way of communicating complex scientific ideas to any audience.
IMPOSSIBLE OBJECTS
Professor Kokichi Sugihara has given us a number of his Impossible Objects to use and explore at the Expo. An impossible object look like normal three-dimensional objects at the same time they look like they cannot physically exist.
ART AND MAGIC
Jonathan Gilhooly’s work is concerned with the relationship between art, magic, and perception. This relationship is explored through a variety of media, and attempts to reproduce some of the forms and strategies associated with the magic act, and to consider how the effects of the magic illusion might position the viewer in relation to a set of beliefs about the world. In this sense the magic act (and/or object) operates as a kind of fulcrum between the work and the viewer, signposting a particular orientation towards the work, but simultaneously destabilizing any straightforward response in favour of a more complex set of reflections. Jonathan Gilhooly has exhibited widely both regionally and nationally, and has received several financial awards from Arts Council England and other funding bodies. His work incorporates a diverse set of practices including video, installation, text, and performance. He is a lecturer in Humanities at Brighton University, and lives and works in Brighton.
www.jonathangilhooly.com