from digital ECHOS to virtual ETHOS
Music technology meets philosophy

Kiyoshi Furukawa, Takayuki Hamano, Hidefumi Omura, Reiko Hoshi-Shiba, Ryu Nakagawa, Hiroko Terasawa: “it’s almost a song...”

Kiyoshi Furukawa, Takayuki Hamano, Hidefumi Omura, Reiko Hoshi-Shiba, Ryu Nakagawa, Hiroko Terasawa: “it’s almost a song...”

Athens Conservatory (ΩδείονΑθηνών), Concert Hall

17-19 Vasileos Georgiou Β& Rigilis Str., 10675 Athens http://goo.gl/EqRdi2

“it’s almost a song…” as Work In Progress, is an installation for three Electroencephalography (EEG) systems and Clarinet. The mixture of musical, auditory, and visual stimuli and the real-time visualization/sonification of EEGs by audience comprises a spatial and interactive representation of interconnected musical minds. This installation inherits the core real-time technologies such as data acquisition, classification, visualization, and sonification, from our interdisciplinary research project “Brain dreams Music.”The installation version was first presented at a workshop in Fukushima, Japan in summer 2013. Our newest installation comprises EEG sonification of Fourier transform (FFT) and event-related potential (ERP), individual EEG visualizations, and another visualization that integrates EEGs of the participating audience. The auditory stimuli to evoke brain activity is now a composition for clarinet, instead of sine tones in the earlier version. During the presentation, the audience attend blend of the clarinet stimuli and continuous FFT sonification sound with individual and integrated visualizations. At the end of the presentation, the ERP sonification joins the composition. The synchronization and segregation of audiovisual representations inspire the interactive exploration of the relationship between brain and music. This installation was generously funded by JST-ERATO Okanoya Emotional Information Project.

Kiyoshi Furukawa organized the general concept of the installation. He studied composition with I. Yun and G. Ligeti at the Music Academy in Berlin and Hamburg. Artist in residence at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology, Germany. Since 2001 Professor at the Tokyo National University of the Arts. The project team for the installation is composed of following musicians and scientists. Takayuki Hamano (composer/installation-system/BCI system, JST), Hidefumi Ohmura (machine lerning, JST), Reiko Hoshi-Shiba (EEG analysis, Tokyo Denki University), Ryu Nakagawa (EEG-data visualization-system, Tokyo National University of the Arts.), Hiroko Terasawa (sonification- system, Tsukuba University).