Global Mind Project is a development of Art of Mind, a project initiated by Karen Casey in 2004 at the Brain Sciences Institute, Swinburne University Melbourne, involving research, testing and analysis of neocortical activity associated with creativity. Assisted by Associate Professor Rodney Croft, Casey underwent numerous Electroencephalographs (EEG’s) to record her brainwaves while creatively focused. These recordings were subsequently used to create various effects for still images and video based artworks.

Teaming up with software designer Harry Sokol the project evolved over several years, resulting in a unique digital interface for designing and generating real-time audiovisual effects. Extensive experimentation and programming was involved in taking the technology from its initial state, as a video effects recording device, to the current real-time operating system.

The availability of wireless EEG headwear has since made it possible for the project to incorporate live interactive performance, allowing each participant’s brainwave activity to directly affect onscreen visuals and audio effects.

Team

Karen Casey is an interdisciplinary artist with a broad and varied creative practice. Initially a painter and printmaker, she was among a vanguard group of urban indigenous artists exhibiting widely in Australia and overseas from the late 1980’s. Over the years her arts practice has expanded and diversified to incorporate a range of both traditional and new media processes. Her exploration of various digital technologies and collaborations with both arts professionals and people from diverse fields and backgrounds has given rise to some original interactive and hybrid art forms. While her work has taken numerous expressions Karen’s thematic interests have focused steadily on the interplay between mind and matter / the physical and the spiritual, referencing both ancient and contemporary modes of thought as she questions and challenges perceived notions of reality, time and space and our collective world view.

Harry Sokol is a highly talented digital effects and computer technician who has worked with leading Australian artists to develop custom designed software and technical solutions for various projects. He has been producing applications for computers since before the PC was created, spanning a vast range of hardware platforms from mainframe to embedded micro controllers, covering areas as diverse as payroll, computer graphics and device controllers. Harry is capable of utilising the latest advances such as hardware accelerated graphics, while also being able to adapt existing systems to produce viable installation and performance art.

Technology

The Global Mind interface consists of purposely designed digital effects software ‘VisEEG’ coupled with the latest in commercial wireless neuro-technology developed by Emotiv Systems http://www.emotiv.com/

VisEEG is a video and midi effects compositor / generator which utilises raw digital EEG data.  By way of specific programmed commands the software generates real time effects from still and moving image files and audio samples. This can be expressed as either pure digital animation, organic looking image manipulations or cues that trigger sounds when particular brainwave thresholds are expressed in the live EEG.  The program can also be used to create individual artwork images.