The EEGsynth
The OpenBCI Ultracortex headset is a nice piece of hardware, but rather expensive (350-800 USD) and does not always provide a good fit with the subjects in terms of comfort and signal quality. Using loose wires with cup electrodes offers flexibility and attaching a few of them with Ten20 paste to the scalp is not such […]
Epsilonia Mix for Radio Libertaire (89.4 FM), by Samon Takahashi, with the voice of Natasha Rosling Samon Takahashi created an exciting mix of music created by brain activity, and/or inspired by neuroscience. It is part of ongoing research Samon is taking into the history of EEG-based (brainwave) music. You can find the playlist and the gorgeous […]
COGITO in Space, at TecArt 2018. February 10th, at location Worm We had a great time at TecArt, where Daniela de Paulis, Guillaume Dumas and I presented COGITO in Space, conceived by artist Daniela de Paulis, in an interactive installation. Participants could sign up to have their EEG recorded while, within the 3D space of the Oculus Rift, watched […]
Le Second Square makers fairFebruary 17-18 at Carreau du Temple, Paris We had a great time at Le Second Square, a makers-art fair full of interactive installations, presentations and shows. It was a fund and busy event, also helped by suddenly beautiful weather in Paris. On Friday the 17th, Samon Takahashi gave a presentation on […]
At the finissage for the exhibition “Inget att se här!”, Jean-Louis Huhta presented magnetoencephalography recordings that were made using 306 sensors that picked up his brain’s magnetic activity, while he was laying down and transitioning into sleep. These recordings were done by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Whitmarsh, who then analyzed oscillatory activity in several frequency bands […]
The EEGsynth is going into a busy phase of development and performance thanks to the hard work by the team since 2013 and a grant by Kulturbryggan. Here are a few of the things that will happen in the spring: From Feb 7-11 we will present the EEGsynth as part of the COGITO project at Techart in Rotterdam. We will […]
Today we shot the EEGsynth in action for the science journal E=M6, a science-education show for children on Metropole Television. The program is a French cultural treasure, running for 25 years and having over 3 million weekly viewers! We are part of a series in which E=M6 explores electricity, centered around the (apparently popular) question […]
Robert and I updated and tested the COGITO setup at the upcoming TecArt festival in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where we will record EEG, transform it into sound in real-time, and then send those sound recordings into space using the 25-meter ASTRON radio telescope at Dwingelo, The Netherlands. It was nice to see everything work quite […]
At the finissage for the exhibition “Inget att se här!” [Nothing to see here!], Jean-Louis Huhta will present magnetoencephalography recordings that were made using 306 sensors that picked up his brain’s magnetic activity, while he was laying down and transitioning into sleep. These recordings were done by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Whitmarsh, who then analyzed oscillatory […]
We were happy and proud to perform at the opening of the visual art exhibit If Seeing is Believing, at Fullersta Gård (Huddinge, Sweden), curated by our long-time collaborator Susanne Ewerlöf. For us, this was a chance to exchange with the (visual) arts, and explore how sound and visual art can inform each other and create […]
We are very happy to announce that we have been rewarded a considerable Kulturbryggan grant! With this grant we will develop way’s to fuse musician’s brains, furthering our interdisciplinary research in brain-synthesis. Specifically, we will create ways for people to ‘jam’ together, by connecting their EEG to sound equipment. It will allow anyone with a […]
If you are in Enschede, The Netherlands, this weekend, you can find the EEGsynth at the COGBOT festival for art, music and creative technology (7-10 September). At COGBOT can participate on the COGITO project, watch the amazing movie by Sandro Bocci while your EEG is recorded for interstellar transmission!
The event started with a brief introduction about the technology that is used as well as the underlying scientific, artistic and philosophical ideas. The three of us also talked about how medical hypnosis changes the allocation of attention and modifies the regular functions of cognitive control. Before the event began, Hernan had hypnotised Jean-Louis. The […]
We did it! See below the first EEG real-time coded into audio and sent into space with the Dwinglo radiotelescope at ASTRON, The Netherlands. Many inspired experts worked hard on getting us this far. Next step is to prepare the public performances, hopefully starting in November. For more info stay tuned here and on Daniela’s […]
A performance at the Se2017 conferenceKarolinska Institutet, Stockholm, August 13, 2017 Probing the Mind of Berzelius is an interdisciplinary artistic performance that will take you on a sonic dive into the discovery of selenium 200 years ago. The performance is developed by neuroscientist Stephen Whitmarsh (NL) with musicians Jean-Louis Huhta (SWE) and Samon Takahashi (FR). […]
For his second solo exhibition at Galleri Fagerstedt in Stockholm, Per Huttner shows a sculpture that uses an EEG-recording of his brain activity under hypnosis. The work is made up of curtain that covers the back wall of the gallery. The curtain is made of the same material as one of the characters in the […]
April 7-9, 2017 For two nights we stayed at the ASTRON radio telescope facility in Dwingelo, The Netherlands to develop the protocols for the COGITO performance envisioned by artist Daniela de Paulis. The primary goal of this meeting was to develop a paradigm in which high quality electroencephalography (EEG) is recorded while the participant is […]
On March 6th we held progress meeting of the Brain Control Club at CRI. We were happy to be joined by the GameLab and by three students from the interdisciplinary program on education technology who were interested in finding ways to include neuroscience in their exciting projects. The slides of the presentations can be found […]
This weekend, 1+1=3 had the opportunity to meet in Paris and spend a day updating each other and working out our plans for the future. Much has happened lately, and many exciting things will happen next year. First music release due in spring We have done the first EEG recordings of what will become the […]
It is 35 degrees outside, and probably even more in my little south-facing studio. So it is with a overheated brain that I am reading a recent communication by Bart Lutters and Peter J. Koehler in BRAIN, titled: Brainwaves in concert: the 20th century sonification of the electroencephalogram. Luckily it is short and sweet, and […]
For more about our artistic projects using the EEG-synth you can NOW go to our new website. The EEGsynth.org site will continue to be the place for all news and info about the EEGsynth software and hardware development.
We have just arrived in Los Angeles, USA, kicking off our USA tour where we will work and perform together, connect with other artists and academics, give talks, host a session at a conference and reconnect with old friends. First of all, we couldn’t have been able to get it all together with the people […]
One option for connecting the EEGsynth software to modular synth hardware is though our own open hardware Arduino-based USB to CV/Gate modules. Another option is to use readily available commercial hardware, such as the Doepfer MCV4, A-190-2, A-190-4, Pittburgh Modular MIDI 3, or Kenton USB-Solo. We decided to give it a try with the Shuttle Control from Endorphin.es. The Shuttle Control is […]
I have been looking into TouchOSC as an example application that can send and receive Open Sound Control (OSC) messages. I have installed it on my iPhone 5 and on my iPad 2. Using the inputosc/outputosc modules I can read/write OSC messages with EEGsynth. The only thing that I have not figured out yet is how to broadcast OSC messages. We are […]
A lot of development on the EEGsynth software has happened since the BrainHackathon in Paris. The following modules are now implemented (in alphabetical order): accelerometer brain buffer eyeblink heartrate inputosc keyboard launchcontrol muscle openbci2ft outputcvgate outputosc playback pulsegenerator redis sequencer synthesizer volcabass volcabeats volcakeys All the code for the EEGsynth is managed on GitHub, where […]
We are very excited to meet other EEG hackers at BrainHack, Paris, February 24-26. Here are the outlines of our 5 minute scientific and artistic pitch: EEGsynth: scientific and development pitch Stephen Whitmarsh & Robert Oostenveld (presenters), Per Huttner & Jean-Louis Huhta We are very happy to be able to present to you the EEGsynth […]
We wish you a very happy new year! We had quite a year ourselves, and the future of the EEGsynth looks very promising indeed. I would like to give a short recap of where we are now, and where we will be focussing in terms of hardware/software development in the next couple of months. It […]
To link the digital signal processing on a laptop or Raspberry Pi to the analog synthesizer, I have made two usb-to-cvgate converters. The first one I designed and implemented was a one-channel version that is able to output up to (approximately) 5 Volt. The second one is an improved version with four channels that can be […]
On the evening of October 15, 1+1=3 performed together with Carima Neusser for a small invited audience at Jean-Louis’ studio. Those who have followed the blog will know that for some time we have been developing the possibilities of the EEGsynth to use muscle activity as a control signal for sound synthesis. This was our […]
Following testing of the one-channel CV/Gate controller and discussions with Stephen, I moved on and designed a four-channel version. The MCP4725 DAC converter used in the previous version can be combined with another DAC on the same I2B bus by removing a connection on the breakout board. However, the I2C bus won’t scale further. I […]