Today, I received the following link: http://vimeo.com/99011517.
Raphaël HOLT > Âtman from Le Fresnoy on Vimeo.
According to G.tec Medical Engineering (from its September 2014 newsletter): “Âtman is a performance that resides at the intersection of the neurosciences and dance. Using wireless electro-encephalographic technology, associated with BCI and EEG sonification processes, a performer’s brain waves are translated into sound waves in real time. The performer is joined by a dancer, and the duo evolves, each exploring the question of the Other.”
“This project is a piece of research and art about being, about presence and about encounter. We found inspiration in the practice of yoga, butoh and Ma as we immersed ourselves in a discovery of movement and immobility. Modified states of consciousness as well as meditation were fully part of the research from the outset. We were searching for an experience that was at once intimate and widely shared. This universal essence, Âtman written in Sanskrit, is the subject of this piece. We offer an experience, an invitation to see the invisible. The performers are asked to simply be. This calls for an incredible responsiveness, an uncommon attentiveness, so as not to construct, fabricate, act, over-perform, or preconceive. The performers were asked to address a simple and complex truth, which can be called presence. To be in the present and to be present. To be a being that can cast light on the forgotten, on the things that reside in the invisible. It began with this desire to listen to the intimate music of the mind, of the body at work. For both spectator and performer, the hope is to resonate in concert with one another, in the sense that matter itself resonates, collectively and individually, within acoustic forms that extend the space of this experience.”
“Âtman performance was produced by Le Fresnoy, national Studio for contemporary arts, in partnership with Guger Technologies. It uses the wireless EEG technology g.Nautilus and software platform OpenVibe and PureData.”
In the next few decades, implantable electronics could shift the focus of medical care from reactive, symptom-based diagnosis to early detection or prevention. Heralding that future is the Linq, a new cardiac monitor from medical device giant Medtronic. The company is already envisioning future versions of the implantable gadget, studded with sensors that will give doctors and patients reams of biometric information. The sensors could someday help athletes fine-tune their bodies for improved performance or let an elderly person live independently while his or her vitals are monitored remotely. Medtronic believes that it will eventually be seen as negligent not to have these sensors installed—whether you’re elderly and infirm, or young, fit, and healthy.