2016
Interactive audiovisual performance
EEG (electroencephalography), EOG (electrooculography), OpenBCI, video and audio granular synthesis
Performer: Chancellor Fakih
Chancellor is a live audiovisual performance in which a performer’s brain and eye activity shape what the audience sees and hears. EEG and EOG sensors connected through an OpenBCI interface capture the performer’s brainwaves and eye movements in real time. These signals drive a granular synthesis system that breaks video and sound provided by the performer himself into fragments and recomposes them as the performance unfolds.
The performer sits still on stage with sensors attached to his head. Almost nothing moves in his body, yet the room keeps changing. The performance sits at the threshold between perceiving and remembering: signals of attention and recall determine how image and sound are broken apart and reassembled. Neural activity serves both as data and as expressive material, and memory appears not as stored content but as something the performer rebuilds from his own material, moment to moment, through his own signals.
