Find Big Mind was designed as a multi-media immersive environment and interdisciplinary conversation among visual artists, musicians, writers, architects, filmmakers and designers on the topic of “What Does An Idea Look Like?” In this experiment, we sought to translate participants’ thoughts into tangible experiences for the audience. A live digital visualization of participants’ brainwaves, which were collected via NeuroSky headsets, was projected on a wall. The tonalities of participants’ voices, collected through microphones and a soundboard, were converted by computer program into shifting colors of lighting for the space. The result was that the room itself became an ambient moderator of the conversation.
My collaborators in organizing this project were artists Corazon del Sol and Leila Hamidi. We were inspired by the Kitchen Table and Fire in the Library relational artworks of LA artist Eugenia Butler, who was Corazon's mother and Leila's mentor. I came to know Eugenia's work through editing a series of excerpts from the Kitchen Table talks for X-TRA magazine. Participants in Find Big Mind included: Dr. Joann Kuchera-Morin, composer & director of the Allosphere at UCSB; Marcos Lutyens, interdisciplinary artist; F. Myles Sciotto, immersive environment designer; Joshua Wolf-Shenk, author; Mark Lee, architect; and Flora Sigismondi, video and filmmaker. Sound/light design by Steven & Jon-Kyle and computer programming by David Guttman. Find Big Mind took place on Oct. 13, 2012 at For Your Art in Los Angeles.
photo credit: Leila Hamidi