Brainloop
Brainloop is an interactive performance platform that utilizes a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system that allows a subject to operate devices merely by imagining specific motor commands. These mentally visualized commands may be seen as the rehearsal of a motor act without the overt motor output; a neural synapse occurs but the actual movement is blocked at the corticospinal level. Motor imagery such as "move left hand", "move right hand" or "move feet" become non-muscular communication and control signals that convey messages and commands to the external world. In Brainloop the performer is able – without physically moving – to investigate urban areas and rural landscapes as he globetrots around a virtual Google Earth. Through motor imagery, he selects locations, camera angles and positions and records these image sequences in a virtual world. In the second half of the performance, he plays back the sequence and uses Brainloop to compose a custom soundtrack by selecting, manipulating and re-locating audio recordings in real time into the physical space.
Courtesy of: BEEP/Data Logic, Author: Janez Janša, BCI performer: Markus Rapp, BCI supervisor: Reinhold Scherer, Programmer: Suncica Hermansson, PD programmer: Seppo Gründler, Sound designers: Seppo Gründler and Brane Zorman, Executive producer: Marcela Okretič
Production: Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Co-production: VisionSpace, Department of Information Design FH Joanneum - University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria, Institute for Knowledge Discovery Laboratory of Brain-Computer Interfaces, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
Supported by: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana, Partner: gtec - Guger Technologies medical & electrical engineering, Thanks: Prof. Gert Pfurtscheller, Gerhard Eckel, Jochen Martin
