Group Meeting 2: 2023 02 21: Forming the Questions

A VERY engaging zoom meeting (most stressful, intense, interesting one I’ve ever been on) because of the level of attention and accountability asked of each of us. Very effective model, each person being put on the spot with no notice. Shockingly effective.

I met with Sarah earlier in the day (I had somehow deleted the group meeting notification or didn’t put it in when I was in Berlin last month) so having two meetings in one day didn’t leave much processing time on ideas, so some of this is post 1-1 processing.

I see a potential path of a series of related or sequential questions:

• What is specific to the EEG that is special, using it as a tool, using brainwaves as a medium? What can an EEG do that a that an EKG or EMG or motion sensor can’t do in terms of making art? What are the affordances specific to this device and this organ (the brain) for making art?
• When using the EEG, what is controllable by the user? Can experienced users control more features, or is everything accessible to a new user? What is not controllable, and is that data useful? Can emergent or subconscious activity be revealed with an EEG, and to what use? If it’s not controllable, what is the user experience of that? Would that be any different than a randomized generator choosing values?
  • Think of Penijean Gracefire’s description of what the brain does:
    • Is there a pattern?
    • Does it have to do with me?
    • Can I control it?
• What aesthetics are the most effective at giving the user a sense of control, or producing the most phenomenal biofeedback experiences?
• How would I describe the phenomenon I’ve experienced with EEG biofeedback?
  • Comments from Bryce Willem on this:
    • “‘Shifts in Awareness’ and going on to define this as a category of phenomena could good route into this territory. The tricky bit is that phenomena is a broad terms that can encompass anything that can be perceived in consciousness. This includes changing content – like colors in the world, musical relationships, but also moods and mental states that you become aware of. From how I’ve understood these experiences you’ve described and from the list you just gave, it’s more about changes in the state or quality of conscious awareness. A patterns between all these is that you are aware of them as states, whereas default consciousness is not typically aware of its state or quality, but rather just focused on an object with one’s attention. This is a change in the bandwidth of attention to both perceive the content change but also perceive the change in conscious awareness itself.”
• Can I replicate these experiences in myself? Can I replicate this experience for others? What conditions produce X results?