Fish-to-Brain Interfaces, Antony Hall, Ljubljana

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Revision as of 21:46, 24 October 2012 by Tonazoid (talk | contribs) (Material preps)
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Fish brains.jpg

Mentor

Antony Hall

Antony Hall (UK), who loves to do Tabletop Experiments, works on various projects and participated at the Hackteria Lab - Dock18 - 6-9 April 2010.

Assistants

tba

Target audience

students high-school / university, geeks, emerging artists, hackers, educators

Date & Time

11:00 - 16:00

24. November, 2012

Registration

limited place to particpate, max 12 people.

Enki workshop outline

This workshop will explore low-fi methods of brain hacking, using sound and light to create hallucinatory effects, tactile and visual ques to trick our minds into thinking parts of our body have transformed or moved. Participants become experimental subjects investigating extra-perception, electro-physiology and ‘body as electrical image’ key concepts in Enki project. Our perception of the world is shaped by our expectations and assumptions, as well as by our sensory systems. As an introduction we will talk about sensory systems in animals, owls and electric fish for example, before talking about human perception and how it can be tricked.

Electro perception

Demonstration of electrical organ discharge activity using phones as sound source for generating electrical field. - Participants wear amp and loop to create electrical field to transmit like the fish, and using pickup coils to attempt to navigate and communicate without using visual perception.

'Brain hacking'

Basics of 'bio-feedback' and 'optical brain' machines and 'audio entrainment' - Optical stimulation and overload created by certain ranges of stroboscopic flashing can in some perole create highly hallucinogenic visual patterns that in turn effect our brain states. The Electric fish in Enki control these frequencies but we will attempt to create a low fi version based on simple biofeedback.

- Exploring GSR response and linking this to optical brain machine, Using charts to map electrical levels on skin and body - Ganzfeld experiment (from the German for “entire field”) 'is a technique used in the field of parapsychology to test individuals for extra-sensory perception (ESP). It uses homogeneous and unpatterned sensory stimulation to produce an effect similar to sensory deprivation. The deprivation of patterned sensory input is said to be conducive to inwardly-generated impressions.' We will use ping-pong balls placed over the eyelids to create homogenous fields and listen to white noise to see what happens.

Experimenting with Binaural beats - Pseudo science? We can discuss, I discover the Fish naturall emit binaural frequencies when interacting with each other and harness them for my experiments.

'Self' perception. Seeing is believing

Low-fi. Humans are primarily visual in their thinking to such an extent the human mind can easily be tricked using just this sence. Experiments have shown that we can be tricked into thinking we are actually outside our own bodies. We will explore simple perceptual experiments show that self-perception, more specifically, the location of the ‘self’ is plastic and not concrete. Where do we locate our selves? This question is interesting when considering the Electric fish extended electro physical body. How can humans adapt to extra perceptual modifications.

- Rubber hand experiment can be done with any fake hand. More interestingly you can make your own hands from clay or fill rubber gloves with material. This allows us to question practically are the limits of our own perceptual systems; What can we trick our own minds into physically believing?

- Drawing exercises can tell us a lot about how we physically perceive our selves. Wooden-hand.jpeg

Discuss experiment results and ethics

Material preps

  • GSR sensors? Are we ok to use salami sensor kit for this?

will making this be part of the workshop? I use sound output to go direct to sound to light circuit - aka bio feedback brain machine

-need foil for sensor -velco 12x pingpong balls, elastic bands sound system 6x head phones, [ wil we have a coupel extra laptops or computers to use as sound sources?

  • 4 x Velman 12v 18w amplifiers £8-12 each – [i will bring these]
  • 1x roll of Electrical cable, [use for making loop]
  • 2x Pickup coils £12each (we'll get some...) you know like guitar pickup coils]

bag of Clay for making new hands Rubber gloves, latex gloves,

Printing large A3 charts to map volt meter measurements of skin votage and polarity.