Brain power: Control the water

19

September

2018

5/5 (1)

As a kid growing up in the Netherlands, the song ‘Dansplaat’ from Brainpower was played over and over again on the radio, eventually awarded with a platina single. Little did I know the meaning of the artist’s name…

Until I came across an interesting article. A young woman named Lisa Park uses her brainwaves and related emotions to manipulate water. In her art performance Eunoia (meaning ‘beautiful thought’), she uses EEG (electroencephalography, a sensor that detects brainwaves) to make sounds by letting water vibrate. Kind of like making wine glasses sing, yet instead of using your finger tip, you use your brain. In her performance, Lisa uses 48 pools of water atop of 48 speakers, which each represent one of the 48 emotions philosopher Spinoza described in Ethica. Each speaker is connected to Lisa’s EEG headset, that transforms signals – or brainwaves – from the headset to the speakers by a defined algorithm. The algorithm reads the brainwaves in real-time from the headset and translates them into vibrations on the speakers. The speakers make the water vibrate and create illusional sounds. Every performance is unique, as each time the outcome depends on how Lisa is dealing with her feelings: calmer emotions mean less vibrations.

Interesting as this is, I find myself thinking how this can evolve over time. Reading brainwaves can be helpful in for example dealing with stress, anxiety or depression. Or what if you can control objects, moving a coffee mug by just thinking of it? For lazy persons, this may be the perfect outcome. We have seen it already in fictional stories such as Mathilda or Stranger Things, despite they did not use a device to translate their thoughts. However, it can also turn the tables completely. What happens if we have a device that reads not only brainwaves but also our mind?

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9 thoughts on “Brain power: Control the water”

  1. I listened to the song, to be quite honest, I did not expect Dansplaat to be a hip-hop-ish song. Some groovy brainwaves..
    But talking about brainwaves in dealting with mental illness, how relaible is it exactly? because the subject matter is someone’s wellbeing, then that, carries a great weight and ethical implications. EEG alone might not be sufficient.
    I would love some more recommendations on old dutch songs, old fashioned dutch pop culture in general..
    cheers.

  2. This is defintely an unualual approach to an art performance. And it is beautiful!

    Overall, the idea remined me of something that is going on in the area of physical medicine and rehabilitation. They use those things called BCI brain-computer interface or biofeedback, it’s basically when they connect you to EEG and detect the alpha waves from your nape (those indicate your attention states/shifts and how well can you concentrate). Then they give you a something like a video game, where you play with a ball that gets bigger if you they see that you have a bad attention span. So basically, in the end, your brain learns how to control the shifts of your attention = you get better at concentration. This, for example, helps patients with ADHD.

    It’s actually the same technology, but in a more ‘physical’ form.

    1. Hi Mariia,

      Thank you for the interesting example of attention/focus control. Again a good example of how EEG may be used in (mental) health care. I did not know this already exists, very good to hear the development of this EEG practice has already started!

      Best regards,
      Moreen

  3. Great example of the use of technology in art and very interesting topic!
    I recently read something about the subjects as well. In the field of medicine, they are currently combining EEG and AI to work as a diagnostic system. With the use of these two technologies they are able to predict a patient’s likeliness to develop Parkinson’s disease 10 to 15 before any symptoms are visible. Thereby, the use of EEG data in combination with AI is believed to make it possible to develop diagnostic systems for other neurodegenerative diseases and change the way early diagnostics will be treated in the future.
    In my opinion, this technology is very promising for several industries and especially the healthcare industries as it could help with early diagnosis leading to faster and better treatment but it can also be used in treatments like the above-mentioned example with ADHD patients.

    1. Hi Daphne,

      Thanks for your reply. Indeed using EEG in combination with AI to prove as a diagnostic system seems a real improvement in current health care. When diseases are diagnosed way before symptoms arise, a possibility exists to decrease the symptoms of that specific disease or even prevent outbreak of it. In my opinion this should be further developed as soon as possible, so health care improves radically in preventing diseases such as Parkinson.

      Best regards,
      Moreen

  4. Dear Moreen,

    Thank you for your post, very interesting topic! I loved reading it. To be honest, I had no idea that people can make music out of their own brainwaves. I really appreciate that we can also use technology in this way for arts and music. I do agree that, in the future, we might use brainwaves to detect depression etc. However, I am still unsure about using such technology to “control objects”, as I think that we should not reach such levels of laziness and because it also seems a bit impossible to me still. Furthermore, I am also not sure how ethical it is to read someone’s brainwaves. An even worse ethical matter is if they will be able to read our minds! Because of these concerns, I do no think that a lot of people will easily give in to this new level of technology. But I still think it is a very interesting topic to discuss.

    Kind regards,

    Berna

    1. Hi Berna,

      Thanks for your comment and compliment! I also like the idea of using technology to create arts and music. You may also want to look at Wielande’s comment, where she put a link from Taryn Southern, a woman who made an album with help of AI.
      I totally agree with you on the ethical part of reading brainwaves. I can’t imagine what will happen if this is possible or if the system able to read the brainwaves/mind gets hacked. The world will be crazier and crazier, maybe an idea for a new episode of Black Mirror 😉

      Best regards,
      Moreen

    1. Hi Wielande,

      Thanks for the comment! I actually saw Taryn at an AI event of the company I work for, and her speech was pretty interesting. She also performed a couple of songs, which sounded nice because of the combination of classical music with modern pop beats. Howevever, Taryn’s own brain was used to create the songs, but she uses an app where she puts her mood and a musical genre and there you go. Very simple for someone who doesn’t know lots about AI. Maybe in the future, this will develop further and can even replace musicians of nowadays. I hope that is not the case, as I like music myself a lot and don’t want to see the beauty and emotions of humans performing fade away…

      Best regards,
      Moreen

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