Embodied Simulation

‘Embodied Simulation’ is a multiscreen video and sound installation that aims to provoke and nurture strong connections to the global ecosystems of which we are a part. The work combines artificial intelligence with dance and research from neuroscience to create an immersive, embodied experience, extending the viewer’s bodily perception beyond the skin, and into the environment.
The cognitive phenomenon of embodied simulation (an evolved and refined version of ‘mirror neurons’ theory) refers to the way we feel and embody the movement of others, as if they are happening in our own bodies. The brain of an observer unconsciously mirrors the movements of others, all the way through to the planning and simulating execution of the movements in their own body. This can even be seen in situations such as embodying and ‘feeling’ the movement of fabric blowing in the wind. As Vittorio Gallese writes, “By means of a shared neural state realized in two different bodies that nevertheless obey to the same functional rules, the ‘objectual other’ becomes ‘another self’.”

Space Odyssey 2002

FILE 2024 | Aesthetic Synthetics
International Electronic Language Festival
Valentin Rye – A Space Odyssey 2002 – Denmark

This video offers a surrealist take on futuristic sci-fi concepts from the 60s and 70s. Imagine a future colonization of Mars where interior design is given an avant-garde twist. It was created by brainstorming visual ideas, generating countless images, refining the best ones and assembling them into clips. After careful selection, these clips have been organized into a cohesive timeline, accompanied by atmospheric music to enhance the overall experience.

Bio

Valentin Rye is a self-taught machine whisperer based in Copenhagen, deeply passionate about art, composition and the possibilities of technology. He has been involved in AI and neural network image manipulation since starting DeepDream in 2015. While his IT work lacks creativity, he indulges in digital arts during his free time, exploring graphics, web design, video, animation and experimentation with images.

Brain Entity

FILE 2024 | Interator – Sound Synthetics
International Electronic Language Festival
Luigi Novellino (aka PintoCreation) – Brain Entity – Italy

In a laboratory, a brain-like organism grows rapidly, integrating with technology and evolving into a giant entity that manipulates objects with its mind. He hypnotizes the city, absorbing energy and creating patterns. Efforts to stop him fail, signaling a battle to understand existence. This symbolizes a new era of coexistence, urging us to embrace interconnectivity and navigate a more integrated world.

Bio

Fascinated by the limitless domain of AI, Luigi Novellino adopts the title syntographer, a term that resonates deeply within the community. The artist often asks himself: “am I an artist?” Art, in his view, defies rigid definitions or limits; it represents a fluid expression of creativity that transcends labels. The artist’s ultimate goal is to awaken something in the viewer, provoking thoughts and evoking emotions.

Credits

Music: Odyssey by John Tasoulas

Journey
JOURNEY is a 4 min. immersive audiovisual experience, telling the story of photons, primary elements of light, from the moment they approach the eye until the brain reconstructs them into perceivable forms. Our journey begins with the formation of photons in blank space, the colored photons approach the eye and we find ourselves in the capillary structure of Iris, the first layer of the eye. Next stop for the light particles is the Lens, which has a more crystalline form. We find ourselves in a refractive and fractalized environment. With an accelerating pace, we move towards a structure of many capillaries, aka optic nerves, gradually becoming thinner and eventually transmitting light particles towards neurons.

Brainswarm
Brainswarm is a musical piece of biomusic that combines, in real time, information from the music director (both from his brain signals as well as from his movement) with the music from the instruments. This is the point where music meets biomedical sciences.

Eunoia II
It is an interactive performance and installation that attempts to display invisible human emotion and physiological changes into auditory representations. The work uses a commercial brainwave sensor to visualize and musicalize biological signals as art. The real-time detected brain data was used as a means to self-monitor and to control. The installation is comprised of 48 speakers and aluminum dishes, each containing a pool of water. The layout of “Eunoia (Vr.2)” was inspired by an Asian Buddhist symbol meaning ‘balance.’ The motif of number 48 comes from Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ (Chapter III), classifying 48 human emotions into three categories – desire, pleasure, and pain. In this performance, water becomes a mirror of the artist’s internal state. It aims to physically manifest the artist’s current states as ripples in pools of water.

Staalhemel

The intimate topography of the brain is laid out across a grid of 80 steel ceiling tiles as a spatialized form of tapping. The visitor can experience the dynamics of his cognitive self by fitting a wireless EEG interface on his head, that allows him to walk under the acoustic representation of his own brain waves.The accumulating resonances of impacted steel sheets generates penetrating overtones. The spatial distribution of impact and the overlapping of reverberations create a very physical soundspace to house an intangible stream of consciousness.‘Staalhemel’ (‘steel sky’, 2009) articulates the contradictory relationship we entertain with our own nervous system. Neurological feedback makes that the cognitive focus is repeatedly interrupted by the representation of this focus. Concentrated thinking attempts to portray itself in a space that is reshaped by thinking itself nearly every split second.

Self-Reflected

Dr. Greg Dunn (artist and neuroscientist) and Dr. Brian Edwards (artist and applied physicist) created Self Reflected to elucidate the nature of human consciousness, bridging the connection between the mysterious three pound macroscopic brain and the microscopic behavior of neurons. Self Reflected offers an unprecedented insight of the brain into itself, revealing through a technique called reflective microetching the enormous scope of beautiful and delicately balanced neural choreographies designed to reflect what is occurring in our own minds as we observe this work of art. Self Reflected was created to remind us that the most marvelous machine in the known universe is at the core of our being and is the root of our shared humanity.

brain art
To capture their strikingly chaotic and spontaneous forms, the neurons in Self Reflected are painted using a technique wherein ink is blown around on a canvas using jets of air. The resulting ink splatters naturally form fractal like neural patterns, and although the artist learns to control the general boundaries of the technique it remains at its heart a chaotic, abstract expressionist process.

Nomadic Plants
Vegetation and microorganisms live in symbiosis inside the body of the Nomadic Plants robot. Whenever its bacteria require nourishment, the self-sufficient robot will move towards a contaminated river and ‘drink’ water from it. Through a process of microbial fuel cell, the elements contained in the water are decomposed and turned into energy that can feed the brain circuits of the robot. The surplus is then used to create life, enabling plants to complete their own life cycle. As Gilberto wrote in our email conversation, “The nomadic plant is a portray of our own species. It also deals with the alienated transformation of this new hybrid species that fights for its survival in a deteriorated environment.”