I’m a science fiction fan from way back, and have always been interested in the idea of brain-computer interfaces. So when the BBC reports that a musical piece has been performed in part controlled by brain waves, I sit up and take notice.
The Multimodal Orchestra included several performers fitted with EEG caps and leads. “There is a first violin, a second violin and so on, except that instead of violins they are brains,” explains Dr Anna Mura, the producer. Some of them watched a screen for a particular letter and when they saw it, it triggered a measurable change in their brains which launched a sound or recorded instrument. Others, directed by the conductor, switched their attention between several flashing lights at different frequencies. As their brains synchronized with the lights, the detected changes in their EEG changed the sounds that the audience heard.
There was also an “emotional conductor”, who was watching images while having her heart rate and skin conductance – measures of emotion – monitored. The changes in her mood led to changes in the measures, which in turn blurred and changed the images (I assume these were visible to the audience as well).
All of which sounds gimmicky, one of those geeky science demos, combined with the kind of art that most people don’t understand. Right?
But here’s why I think it’s important. When science matures, it becomes technology – it becomes something that we can use to do things we want to do. This is the beginning of a technology. And it’s based on the fact that what you pay attention to changes the state of your brain.
This is a very important point that underlies a lot of what I talk about here at Living Skillfully. What you pay attention to changes the state of your brain, and what you pay attention to long-term changes the structure of your brain. This isn’t just philosophy, it’s science which is rapidly becoming technology. In fact, the “technology” of using attention to change your brain has been around for centuries, except we usually call it meditation. The difference here is that the technology is now being used to control things outside the brain.
So it pays to put some thought into what you pay attention to, am I right?
Technorati Tags: brain, orchestra, attention, EEG, Multimodal Orchestra, emotion, technology, meditation, brain-computer interface
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