Antoine Bellemare, Othmane Laraki and Yann Harel

Big Nada is an audio-visual artwork that integrates both offline and real-time brain signals. As a first step, the musical piece was composed using a tuning (specific subdivisions of the octave) derived from EEG signal captured during perception of visual fractals. The use of pedals allowed to intervene between the origin and its visual manifestation through a haptic and defragmented approach, forming part of a retrospective loop. As a second step, the visual component of the artwork was created using a particle system and fractal generation in MaxMSP, controlled by real-time EEG signals. The recording of the visuals was made during the listening of the musical piece, leading to a form of recursive synchronization between audio and visual components. By doing so, fluctuations of brainwaves during auditory perception were translated into particle and fractal movements. Big Nada intends to use the non-linearity and the inherent harmonic properties of brain signals as a source of creative exploration and improvisation.

Big Nada from Antoine Bellemare on Vimeo.