Luciana Haill's brain + unknown brain
2 channels realtime prefrontal EEG
2 IBVA BCI portable EEG brainwave monitoring systems
Apple Intel 2Ghz MacBook + some disembodied sounds & occasional musicians sampled for their souls
Psi chic is a hyper band, a collective subconscious interaction
Ms Rosie and Ms LuciDream, Shunt, 2008
Brian Barritt's Brain joins Lu Chi's Psi Chic in Liverpool
The 2 channel stereo IBVA monitors and manipulates raw EEG like dynamic cognitive Theremins, using Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta + Gamma brainwaves' HZ and Amplitude as 3D coordinates in sonic signatures, in enthralling participatory performances.
This is the 3D display used for initial brainwaves analysis. Lu Chi requires members of the party /audience /friends to add their EEG, explore coherence, maybe to also play an instrument or to play with their minds. An EEG trainer system is used for research, involving other locations of the brain.
+ Psi = chic
Left and Right Prefrontal hemispheres + Lu chi wearing some custom EEG sensor headware at Venice Biennale 2005
Influences
Brave New World, time alone, the Moon, the Sun and the Sea, Live dancing flames, Hyperspace, Won Kar Wai's 2046, Mozart, improvisation, Healing frequencies, phantom harmony, EMF phenomena, spirit guides, Mondo 2000, Brian Eno, Iku, Monroe's Hemisync, Scanner, Leon Theremin, Tomatis, Nikola Tesla, The Caretaker, Alvin Lucier, ESP, DMT, Hypnosis, trance tripping, Psionics, Radionics, Magic, Sun Ra, ambient Aphex Twin, Syd Barrett, Zappa, Leadbelly, Fat Fez, Pansonic, KLF 'Chill out", Popul Vuh, Harry Smith
Sounds Like
Aldous Huxley's ipod
Twin peaks garage
You believe me ? hear more Psi Chic EEG tunes
The 'arc-line' multi-strobed feedback in a sound-to-light pyramid I made in my lounge, controlled by IBVA sonification of EEG in North London 1997/2002. (I am wearing the blue IBVA brainwave sensor band and holding 2 of the previous generation radio transmitters, also with Aduki mood lights, G4 laptop, immersed in AV) :-o
Cerebral seductions, 1992, Photoshop2, Mac Centris
"It's like playing a Theremin with your brain" -
Luciana Haill, New Scientist January 27th 2007
Lu Chi generates live 'Psi-chic' unique music evoked by her brainwaves.
Requiring audience interaction, biofeedback and 3D spatialisation of sounds she intuitively controls ethereal digital instruments, samples, visuals, time & space. With altered states, detached focus, she makes mood-music that is themed for exploring the beauty of the brain.
(Performance for 1 or more players)
Psi Chic performances 2004 -2008 include : BAFTA, The Royal Institute, BBC Radio 4 live, The Octagon in Queen Mary University London, Manchester - Futuresonic, Liverpool's FACT & ReActor3, The Sage, The C17 Arts Chapel in Norwich, Mystery and magic in special locations
Performing feels like weaving transient thoughtstreams, with multiple looming ghostly Theremins. Jamming with higher cognitive functions to improvise unique soundscapes. Using self-propagating concepts of relaxed focus and synchronistic brainwave activity to invoke a real-time feedback loop between the conscious and subconscious Mind, and the coherence of her left and right brain hemispheres
So flow, less Ego, no need for eye contact, its good in the dark, feel my EEG, a sensory delight
When the self is forgotten, ten thousand things come to the fore
Softly, you entered the aural theater - generative brainwave 'noodling'.. otherworldly sounds. Delicate emissions, transient microvolts of mental ether, spell-binding the audience listening to a brain séance (a form of mediumship in which one or more people communicate with entities on another frequency)
Lu chi uses Neurofeedback and Hypnotic states to sustain notes without constant reinforcement. A sound is triggered because she has entrained to hold a concept that will continue to take her into a more focused and synchronous place. To add emphasis, I deepen the state, through practice not rehearsal
Sweepng physical movement with 3Daudioscape software, Gain, pitch bending, velocity, control and volume parameters are also all Midi controllable by the brain
Brainwaves are delicate, measured in microvolts, and constantly phasing, cresting like the ocean's white caps. Techniques for navigating this collective ocean are required as it ebbs and flows, untamed and captivating. Large projected animations, Psionic symbols and patterns are are also neurally navigated, to VJ and DJ straight from the brain.
How do we sound ? Unique, but patterns emerge as the self gradually dissolves. Brainwave frequencies (Hertz) manifest as soundwaves (Hertz) perhaps using a fast Beta wave to waft the displaced vibes around the auditorium. Maybe a little Delta wave with echo for a lonely slide guitar, and using Eye movement to trigger subsonic tones. To think in Theta for sublime organs, a fleeting state, hypnotic musical boxes, shamanic bells..?
Not knowing how is perhaps the most intimate knowledge of all
Connectivity with the audience, assimilation, coherence of our brainwaves, so EEG with me, let's make this memory last forever
Lu chi has recorded raw biofeedback with Stelarc, used IBVA with Matt Black (Coldcuts / Ninja tune), Mariko Mori (Wave UFO)...and currently with Martyn Ware ( Heaven 17, Illustrious) in The Future of Sound tour
An Interactive Neurofeedback artist mentored by Roy Ascott in Interactive Art in 1994. Since then Lu chi has recorded thousands of different individuals' EEG internationally, in altered states, ages and awareness. These all add to her compiled material for an ongoing virtual handbook entitled 'Thought Depository'.
Her company IBVA UK supplies the technology internationally and her research has led to connections with some top NLP trainers and Hypnotherapists including Richard Bandler, Owen Fitzpatrick, Ursula James and Meta-NLP where some profound shifts in EEG have been recorded. Also Holistic spiritual healers & chakra work with EEG energy have produced changes such as faster Gamma waves.
Believe and Explore, the electric sea in the brain realm is beautiful, drift away with electronically assisted meditations & Telematic dreaming
if you are looking to explore and promote Science Artists I hope you can come to a show, or invite me to perform at yours.
Performances include :
The Future of Sound tour 2005-2007
www.futureofsound.org
Dear friends, I am playing a free gig at the beauteous Union Chapel, Islington this Saturday. The sunlight will be streaming through its vaulted windows as Blank Canvas and Arctic Circle present this gig during the blessed daylight hours of 12-2. And yea shall it's hallowed interior be filled with all manner of scraping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Let us pray. And then let us go to the pub.
TODOUNO is an absolutely independent movement from Argentina on mental health and special children working in rock projects scince 2000.
You are a friend on our mothersite. Now listen (and add) TODOUNO BAND!, the heaviest special children free rock band on earth at http://www.myspace.com/todounoband and, from the biggest psychiatric hospital in South America, the naive punk of PAJARITO BAND! at http://www.myspace.com/pajaritoband.
Rumor has it making EEG music makes you both smarter and sexier - true? I do indeed plan to do more with my IBVA in '09 per scientific probing of this speculation ;)
I have only good Christian respect for the “Man in the long black dress”. We had just smoked a very strong joint. I belive in miricles and when we stepped through the portal into Holy ground and are asked “Where you from?” I naturally expected him to carry on and say “You sexy thing”. as in Hot Chocolate. Flint had his head in the font so I said “We are local” as in “League of Gentleman”.
He let us in anyhow, and his organ was great. I mean played well, and if I am not mistaken as we entered he introduced a covert tone. No doubt the video shows a green Mata Hari in an exquisit black hat carrying a small brown case filled with something as suspicious as hell. In cahoots with two immegrants on the run from Transylvania. Everything went well I thought except we didn’t get to see the “Nun in a Tent” that was advertized.
Cerebral seductions, 1992, Photoshop2, Mac Centris
