Interactive Artists using IBVA

Inspired by Stelarc, Mondo 2000 and driven by 'waves'

Luciana has been creating interactive installations since 1993 with IBVA and Apple Macs to add brainwave control to live visuals, sounds and feedback loops. Using brainwaves allows her to add raw biological signals from the chemical soup to the electronic ether. (Originally she tried to build her own neurofeedback system.)

Luciana is an electronic interactive artist who captures her brainwaves in many states: sleep, self hypnosis and feedback loops to control 3D soundscapes and live animations. She also demonstrates biofeedback in holistic sensory environments, and help others to learn from within. She became interested in the human brain after recovering from Viral Meningitis during secondary school.

Until the end of the world
Since discovering IBVA and becoming friends with the inventor her horizons have expanded. And now through meeting diverse users and new clients, life has become far more intriguing. Much like the Wim Wenders Film "Until the end of the world", an obsession with cybernetic biofeedback and dreams (and batteries !)

Self Portrait in self analysis © Luciana 1992

From Wales to Hawaii, to Alvin Lucier with Love !
From underground boiler room corridors reverberating to her brain rhythms and strobes, to The Royal Institute. From The 1999 Total Eclipse of the sun to Stonehenge, she records brainwaves from sites that affect her emotions.
How inspriational in Newport Wales was Alvin Lucier's performance 'music for solo performer', amplifying the delicate alpha waves to reverberate timpani and percussion in the auditorium. How I envied his microphones, his sensors, his feedback !


3D EEG in Italy
Until end of November at The Venice Biennale 2005 you could visit Mariko Mori's installation 'Wave UFO' showing in the Arsenale site. The installation utilises technology from Siemens, Body Media biomedical sensors and 3 specially modified stereo coherence IBVA EEGs. A time based interactive installation, the experience must be perceived to be believed. An assistant leads 3 visitors at a time into the Wave UFO, where they recline on a Technogel soft surface. There is a 7-minute projection in a 360 degree domed ceiling above. Each viewer is outfitted with a set of electrodes, which gather brainwave data. This information is instantly transformed into visual imagery, in real-time correspondence with the actual activity of the brain, and projected onto the screen: Six undulating bio-amorphous cells represent the left and right lobes of each of the three participants' brains, and a waving line moves in correspondence with blinks and other facial movements.

This instant biofeedback thus incorporates the experience of watching the projection, and the interaction between the three viewers. The forms change shape and color in response to three types of brainwaves, showing which type is most dominant. Alpha (blue) waves indicate wakeful relaxation, Beta (pink) waves indicate alertness or agitation, and Theta (yellow) waves indicate a dreamlike state. When the two cells come together, that demonstrates "coherence" between the two lobes of the brain. Mental functions such as thinking in other languages or doing maths problems immediately transform the characteristics of the graphics.

The Holographic Wave UFO

Luciana wearing special EEG sensor design for the UFO

Luciana and Mariko in the shade at the Arsenale