DECONCERT: BATHING IN THE LIGHT, SOUND, AND WATERS OF THE MUSICAL BRAINBATHS
Steve Mann, James Fung, Ariel Garten · 2007
We describe a series of performances, events, and waterbased brainwave concerts beginning with an event we called DECONcert (“decontamination concert”). These events explore the combined role of water waves, brainwaves, and radio waves in the production, regeneration, or experience of sound waves (music and musical performance). Water served three roles: (1) water has been the medium for our continued exploration of water-based music (sounds generated by water waves, vortex shedding, and the like); (2) water served a cleansing role, both in actuality as well as metaphorically, to wash away individuality prior to a collective participatory brainwave experience; and (3) as a physical and metaphoric medium for binding participants in a collective consiousness. Various groups of participants at different geographical locations were processed through decontamination and then joined together by EEG (electroencephelograph)electrodes in a common group collective (group of groups). This combination of brainwaves and washing (“brainwashing”) formed a common brainwavebased audiovisual feedback space, across cyberspace. Some of the groups were underwater, or immersed in water, and in the process of shedding their shoes, clothes, and other personal belongings, DECONcert participants were cleansed of their individual “cyborg ” selves, and re-integrated into a collective consciousness shared by various groups of participants, including Parkinson’s patients, in different geographical locations across the World Wide Web. One of the things that we learned is that there is a tremendous willingness for individuals to shed their individuality and become part of a larger collective. 1.