Members of the EEGsynth have been doing research in Mexico City, Oaxaca and Chiapas in December 2023 and January 2024. They have been in residency at El Dia D in Santiago de Queretaro, January 21 – February 12, 2024. During this time they will be working with artists and choreographers from Mexico and Canada and developing new work. The residency also includes public workshops at El Dia D and public presentations at Museo de Arte Contemporeano de Queretaro.
During the stay they have devloped the performance Trickster Ceremony. In it, the performers investigate the relationship between the inner and outer worlds of humans. How do the processes inside the human body affect how we perceive and understand the outside world? How does the outside world impact what happens inside us?
As the performance commences, the audience is offered a specially developed drink by the artists. They then invites the audience to make a short introspection exercise with them.
After the exercise the audience will watch a film which is accompanied by digital live music. For the performance they use repurposed neuroscientific technology developed by the EEGsynth to externalise the activity of the human brain so that its activities can be seen and heard by the audience. In other words, the sounds and moving images in the performance are influenced in real time by signals from a performer’s brain activities.
For this purpose a performer wears an EEG (electroencephalogram) cap on her head. The signals from the cap is sent to a computer which analyses the data and sends it on to a digital musical instruments and software that influence the film’s images in real time.
Tricksters are often boundary crossers of world-views: They can travel into parallel worlds. They cross and often break both physical and societal rules and violate principles of social and natural order. Tricksters often disrupt normal life and then recreates it in new shapes and forms. The film depicts a modern day trickster going through such a transformation.
The working process culminated with a performance at the beautiful Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Queretaro. The program started at 6pm, February 9 and entrance was free. The Swedish artist’s travel to Mexico was supported by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee