After developing the ThoughtCounter idea and running some initial tests, I’ve been looking at artists who’ve explored a similar area – using measurement, technology and direct experience to investigate consciousness. Three artists stand out as particularly relevant.
Marina Abramović, Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze
Marina Abramović’s Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze (2012) “approached the performance as a scientific experiment—hoping to prove an artistic hypothesis of synchronised brain activity in non-verbal communication.”
Wearing EEG caps, Abramović and her performance partner completed different thirty-minute configurations while “Abramović made every effort to clear her mind, just focusing on her breathing until she experienced a tunnel of energy.”
Marina Abramovic, Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze (2012). Photography: Alan Vouba
The work explores “a fascination with collective consciousness, a theme that Abramović explores both through social extroversion and meditative introspection” – directly investigating “experiments at the intersection of expression and neuroscience.”
Why it’s relevant: She’s using scientific measurement to investigate consciousness and presence through direct experience, with breath-focused meditation as the foundation for exploring connection between individuals.
Reflections: What strikes me is how she’s leaned so much into the science in this performance visually. She’s embraced the lab coats and the unique wiring of the EEG caps, making that a central part of the performance – which makes sense given it’s a collaboration with a science centre. I also really like the graphics and visuals of the video. Aesthetically pleasing, clean and relevant.
I’ve experienced the “tunnel of energy” she talks about whilst I was on a silent retreat doing dyad’s – a meditation activity that incorporates the presence of another person. The speaker answers a specific question or responds to a prompt by sharing what arises internally, focusing on their inner experience, feelings, and bodily sensations.
In fact, this could be something interesting to explore – mixing up the questions asked and projecting/noticing how the EEG measurements change.
David Carson & Thijs Biersteker, Mind Over Matter (2018)
David Carson and Thijs Biersteker’s Mind Over Matter (2018) is a “brainwave-controlled art installation” where viewers wear EEG headbands that “detect electrical activity inside the wearer’s brain.”
When viewers are “in a calm or meditative state, the artwork has a peaceful appearance. However, if one or more members of the audience can’t quiet their mind, the artwork gets accordingly frenzied, with dark clouds and images of pollution intruding into the field of view.”
The installation uses “theta and beta waves, well known for reading the meditative state of mind” to create “a direct response to the brain activity of the spectators.” In response to theta waves (associated with meditation), the work “displays a ‘well-balanced’ animation in shades of green and blue.”
Carson and Biersteker designed the work to “make audiences appreciate the power of collective action” – demonstrating that “if we keep our focus on the right things in life, the world doesn’t spin out of control.”
Why it’s relevant: This is the closest reference to my collective consciousness idea – multiple people’s brain states directly controlling a shared visual installation. The key difference is that they’re measuring passive mental states (calm vs. agitated), while my idea asks for active participation (ie. clicking when you notice thoughts).
Reflections: The collective element is powerful – one person losing focus affects the entire visualisation. And the experience highlights how people who meditate had more success in creating peaceful looking art. The environmental message (pollution imagery when minds are chaotic) gives the work more weight beyond just consciouness.
Tehching Hsieh
Tehching Hsieh’s Time Clock Piece (One Year Performance 1980–1981) involved “punching a time clock every hour for a year” in what was described as a “physically and mentally gruelling” work. Hsieh’s premise is that “a fundamental ‘precondition’ of all life is the passing of time, or that ‘life is a life sentence’” – his performances explore this by “stripping down his performances to a few basic activities such as ‘waiting’” to bridge the gap between what he calls “art time” and “life time.”
Tehching Hsieh, Time Clock Piece (One Year Performance 1980–1981)
The work is described as “radically unproductive” and challenges “the relentlessly productive ‘work time’ of capitalism.” Critically, Hsieh “failed to punch the clock” 133 times out of 8,760 possible punches – these failures “highlight the conflict between corporeal time – the time of circadian rhythms, for example – and clock time.”
Why it’s relevant: His obsessive tracking of time mirrors my tracking of thoughts. Both works ask people to attempt impossible tracking of something that happens continuously – time passing / thoughts arising. The failures in both cases reveal the gap between the intention and the execution. And between experiencing and witnessing.
Reflections: I love his exploration of time and how he brings our awareness to it and challenges what is productive vs wasted time. The key difference is that Hsieh’s work is a long endurance (over one year), whereas the ThoughtCounter idea is a focused concentrated effort (one minute). His is about the artist’s commitment, mine is about the participant’s discovery. But both use measurement to essentially make visible what’s normally invisible. ie. The relentless passing of time or the constant arising of thoughts.
Visually, the presentation is minimal and systematic – the grid of photographs, the clock as object, the documentation. The uniformity of the near-identical photographs and their presentation creates a sense of monotony that’s allied to the work itself. It makes me think about how ThoughtCounter’s physical elements (clicker, LED screen, the room itself) needs the same aesthetic consideration.
Other: EEG visualisation examples
My unique angle
With all the examples I’ve found so far, the EEG art involves passive measurement where viewers simply observe their brain activity. Whereas ThoughtCounter additionally asks for active participation – the manual counting itself creates awareness and reveals the impossibility of the task.
I’m excited because I feel like there’s a unique angle which is the combination of the participant’s failure as teaching, meditative inquiry without explicit spirituality, and the potential progression from individual to collective consciousness investigation.
Sources:
https://www.davidlynchfoundation.art/gallery/articles/david-linch-bliss-02
https://www.dezeen.com/2018/09/13/mind-over-matter-mind-controlled-installation-brainwaves
https://www.neuroelectrics.com/blog/eeg-art-exploration-beyond-the-canvas