2023 04 11: Zoe & Kat

Met with Zoe and Kat to discuss our thesis projects. Since we’ve had the opportunity to build a foundation of friendship over the year, I think we all felt more comfortable with more direct critiques of each other’s work, pushing each other to grow in a way we wouldn’t with other classmates.

I felt like my core concept hasn’t been challenged in the last few weeks and asked them to challenge it. I got the feedback I’d been looking for – why am I doing this work? Who is my pitch for? Challenges to my core concept. The combination of the friendships plus that they aren’t already interested in my topic became a catalyst for a strong skeptical view of my work, delivered in a good way.

Zoe asked what am I getting from the thesis process if this is something I’d be doing outside of NYU regardless. I reflected that I’ve learned a lot from the Critical Experiences perspective. I always made art based on tools, not research or concepts. Often the concept was just an afterthought, a name of a track after it’s done and I’m sussing out its vibe. To be deliberate, to research, to document, to have moments of clarity where I see all the ingredients that make up these experiences, that’s of real value and new for me.

Zoe questioned the name of the project, is it too loaded? I’ve gotten this feedback from some folks in the immersive experience industry as well, from that angle. So I’ve often not used the term electropsychedelic to talk about the work. It works great for psychonauts, if that’s my audience. I used this name for the Examined Life conference and that landed very well. But ITP thesis is a different audience, of creative technologist and faculty and related networks. For Zoe, the name is a turn off. Same with the phrase “consciousness expanding” – it’s meaningless to her. Perhaps for skeptics like her, the next step is IRB style scientific validation studies. Even at the sound baths, can I collect surveys afterwards?

Also thinking of future steps as I was explaining the project to her, what is special about putting sensors on more people? For me, it’s the experience of emergent phenomenon, murmuration, flocking behavior, co-authorship, action without an authority. I had an experience in 2008 during a flood crisis in my hometown that led to seeing the power and efficiency and wonder of emergent behavior and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

Kat felt my pitch was too technical and felt like a sales pitch. I was first to admit that the incubator program I’m in at Tandon (Innovention) has shaped the way I present my ITP thesis. But Tandon is different. That is a pitch to investors for funds to commericialize a very specific version of my EEG software. That’s a turn off for Kat. She feels my pitch has no emotional connection in it. What’s the point? Why would anyone care about this project? Theta, brainwaves, EEG, etc etc.. too technical. We didn’t have time (our meeting was 2 hours) but I thought of the many ways I’ve presenting this work in the past, before I understood or was studying the more scientific aspects. I thought about my work with AI, the dancers and motion sensors and seeing how empowering biofeedback loops were for them. Then my lucid dream, getting my first EEG, my eureka moment, my profound experiences during performances, watching Gina hear her brain for the first time – those all were powerful experiences and perhaps the emotional tone that’s been stripped out.