Eva Lee
Interview by Kate Schwarting, Programs Manager
Interview by Kate Schwarting, Programs Manager
Eva Lee and Aaron Trocola speak after presenting Dual Brains, a real-time EEG brain data-driven performance, at Art-A-Hack ™, New York City, 2016. Photo: Enki Andrews
KS: What inspired you to create art influenced by science?
EL: As an artist, I’m fascinated by the nature of the mind and reality. I wonder about consciousness. I wonder about its role in what we perceive as real. Since science is one powerful way of objectively investigating phenomena, I’m interested in its discoveries, and in this regard, science wends its way into my work. I’m influenced in particular by neuroscience, which has made some incredible discoveries about the human brain, using fMRI or EEG to quantify neural-mental activities and relating these results to our psychological and physical wellbeing.
EL: As an artist, I’m fascinated by the nature of the mind and reality. I wonder about consciousness. I wonder about its role in what we perceive as real. Since science is one powerful way of objectively investigating phenomena, I’m interested in its discoveries, and in this regard, science wends its way into my work. I’m influenced in particular by neuroscience, which has made some incredible discoveries about the human brain, using fMRI or EEG to quantify neural-mental activities and relating these results to our psychological and physical wellbeing.
Dual Brains, an OpenBCI real-time EEG brain data-driven performance, 2016, duration 3 minutes. Photo: Pat Shiu
KS: On your website, you mention that your practice incorporates elements of Buddhism. Can you expand on this and its relationship to perception in your work?
EL: My interests have led me to Buddhist philosophy, which puts forth the idea that reality may not be what it seems; that our faculties are limited, and therefore, we perceive a conditioned reality. This makes me imagine hidden, embedded, wondrous, and mysterious worlds all around us. It’s like Dorothy opening the door to the Land of Oz and entering. I want to step through. I want to know how we can understand self and phenomena differently, how we can possibly realize, comprehend, and experience other realities. The potentials leave me in awe, fires me up to investigate further, and express what it means through art.
EL: My interests have led me to Buddhist philosophy, which puts forth the idea that reality may not be what it seems; that our faculties are limited, and therefore, we perceive a conditioned reality. This makes me imagine hidden, embedded, wondrous, and mysterious worlds all around us. It’s like Dorothy opening the door to the Land of Oz and entering. I want to step through. I want to know how we can understand self and phenomena differently, how we can possibly realize, comprehend, and experience other realities. The potentials leave me in awe, fires me up to investigate further, and express what it means through art.
Into the Midst, video, 2012, 4 min 45 sec
KS: Your practice is quite diverse in the mediums you employ. How do you use material and medium to generate meaning? How has technology played a role in your projects?
EL: For me, the ideas I want to convey in art are primary. The material or medium can take different forms. While I trained as a painter, it’s fantastic that the digital revolution now allows practitioners of other disciplines to work in computer graphics and digital video. I love that I can incorporate original drawings, live footage, 3D models, special effects, and so forth, into moving images that unfold over time and are experienced by the viewer. And yet, I can still work with a painter’s sensibility.
I make art now that can be considered experimental film, animation, or video installation. For example, Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions is a video installation that uses 3D modeling to visualize neuroscientific data on human emotions as imaginary landscapes. Another work, Into the Midst, is an experimental film which uses live footage and animation to explore the idea of a provisional self encountering an otherworldly microscopic and macroscopic territory.
Besides using digital media, other technologies have played a role in my work. My latest project, Dual Brains, is an OpenBCI real-time EEG brain data-driven performance that aims to convey human neural interdependence, how we are empathic social beings who help one another. The work is inspired by neuropsychology research which indicates that human brains are fundamentally hard wired for empathy, especially under conditions of duress, in which times holding hands is shown to tremendously reduce psycho-physiological stress. In Dual Brains, the performers’ EEG data are visually presented while they focus their minds on emotionally charged memories, first without physical contact, and then while holding hands. Conceived for Art-A-Hack collaboration and led by me, the team included Aaron Trocola who created the custom EEG headgear and sound based on EEG and ECG data; Gabe Ibagon who did the OpenBCI programming and production; Pat Shiu and Gal Nissim who created the projected visuals.
EL: For me, the ideas I want to convey in art are primary. The material or medium can take different forms. While I trained as a painter, it’s fantastic that the digital revolution now allows practitioners of other disciplines to work in computer graphics and digital video. I love that I can incorporate original drawings, live footage, 3D models, special effects, and so forth, into moving images that unfold over time and are experienced by the viewer. And yet, I can still work with a painter’s sensibility.
I make art now that can be considered experimental film, animation, or video installation. For example, Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions is a video installation that uses 3D modeling to visualize neuroscientific data on human emotions as imaginary landscapes. Another work, Into the Midst, is an experimental film which uses live footage and animation to explore the idea of a provisional self encountering an otherworldly microscopic and macroscopic territory.
Besides using digital media, other technologies have played a role in my work. My latest project, Dual Brains, is an OpenBCI real-time EEG brain data-driven performance that aims to convey human neural interdependence, how we are empathic social beings who help one another. The work is inspired by neuropsychology research which indicates that human brains are fundamentally hard wired for empathy, especially under conditions of duress, in which times holding hands is shown to tremendously reduce psycho-physiological stress. In Dual Brains, the performers’ EEG data are visually presented while they focus their minds on emotionally charged memories, first without physical contact, and then while holding hands. Conceived for Art-A-Hack collaboration and led by me, the team included Aaron Trocola who created the custom EEG headgear and sound based on EEG and ECG data; Gabe Ibagon who did the OpenBCI programming and production; Pat Shiu and Gal Nissim who created the projected visuals.
Lux Flux, video, 2011, 6 min. Commissioned by the City of Tampa for Lights on Tampa 2011.
Discrete Terrain: Windows on Five Emotions, three-channel digital video installation, 2007, 5 min 29 sec, with sound, dimensions approx. 6 ft high x 18 ft wide
KS: Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or projects you are working on?
EL: Yes! Dual Brains will be performed live, presented by Harvestworks/Thoughtworks Arts, on March 6, 2018, in New York City, part of the opening night of SPRING/BREAK Art Show, 5-9pm, 4 Times Square (Chashama). Entrance at 140 West 43rd St. Please come join us! Guest passes and more info here. Regular exhibition is March 7 to March 12. Admission and more info are available here. The Dual Brains video and custom-designed EEG headgear will be on view for the duration of the show. OpenBCI programming and production was completed by Julien Deswaef.
EL: Yes! Dual Brains will be performed live, presented by Harvestworks/Thoughtworks Arts, on March 6, 2018, in New York City, part of the opening night of SPRING/BREAK Art Show, 5-9pm, 4 Times Square (Chashama). Entrance at 140 West 43rd St. Please come join us! Guest passes and more info here. Regular exhibition is March 7 to March 12. Admission and more info are available here. The Dual Brains video and custom-designed EEG headgear will be on view for the duration of the show. OpenBCI programming and production was completed by Julien Deswaef.
