The human brain has long been an object of fascination for art and science, both of which are now blending into “Brainstorms: A Great Gig in the Sky”, a new live interactive experience in the songs of Pink Floyd.
Interactivity is optional, but memorable. Visitors to the exhibit can choose (and pay extra) to record their brain activity while listening to Pink Floyd’s classic album “The Dark Side of the Moon” — and later, have it appear as a mesmerizing cloud in sync with it soundtrack to a very large room at London’s immersive art gallery Frameless.
Immersive art spaces have popped up all over the world, often featuring popular painters whose works blend walls, ceilings and floors around visitors. But combining the concept with music and a live element brings “Brainstorms” closer to “ABBA Voyage,” for example.
That’s not the only thing they have in common: Both shows similarly use technology as an enabler, not a focus.
This makes ‘Brainstorms’ different from last year’s groundbreaking experiment in which neuroscientists were able to recreate Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1’ using AI to decipher electrical brain activity. This time, it’s a spectacle.
While advanced technology is involved behind the scenes, from Emotiv EEG headsets and spatial audio to Unreal strength visualizations, the starting point of the Brainstorms venture was largely music – more specifically, that of the late Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright.
Wright’s daughter Gala wanted to do something special for the album’s 50th anniversary with “The Great Gig in the Sky”, the iconic tune her father composed, with no less memorable vocals by Clare Torry. “So we started brainstorming,” composer and music technologist JJ Wiesler told TechCrunch during the premiere.
Wiesler is its co-founder Pollen Music Group, a San Francisco-based creative shop known for its music scores and sound design. With a music studio and a lab where he works with VR/XR headsets, phones, home appliances and more, Pollen is no stranger to experimentation. But “that’s a bit of a change to take it into the exhibition world,” he said.
It was Gala Wright who had the idea to focus on neuroscience and the study of the human brain’s response to music. That led her and Pollen to work with Dolby to record the brain activity of 125 volunteers listening to “The Great Gig in the Sky,” synchronized with ad hoc software, Wiesler said.
Conducted last year, the experiment forms the basis of “Aurora,” a creation in which the moon casts a glow over the arctic tundra, leading to an aurora borealis.
“Aurora” takes up the entire largest gallery of Frameless, but there are four in total, which were not part of the original design. With 30,000 square feet at their disposal, the Brainstorms team came up with more than just fillers. Keeping ‘excellent concerts in the sky’ as his main theme, he got his own ‘Eclipse’ room and enlisted London-based music artist Imogen Heap for a bird-inspired room.
Get off my cloud
A musician known for her engagement with technology, Heap doubles on “Murmur,” which is the backdrop to Cumulus’ atmospheric track, while two flocks of starlings—murmurs—represent her brain activity and her daughter dancing in the sunset.
Perhaps more clearly than in any other room, this visualization gives us a glimpse of how the same music can affect different people. This is the scientific part of Brainstorms: During the visit, participants will learn that the visualizations reflect what others felt while listening to Pink Floyd.
In “Aurora,” engagement triggers the aurora’s red hues, relaxation adds “a calming blue,” and excitement animates the aurora’s movement, the exhibit panels explain. Meanwhile, in “Eclipse,” raw electrical energy from the brain powers solar activity, driving flares and eruptions, while regional brain activity spatially aligns with the sun’s surface activity.
For visitors who opt for EEG readings, it’s more personal: A few days after their visit, they’ll receive a summary of their brain activity. It comes with science-based explanations of gamma, beta, alpha and theta brain waves and what it says about one’s state of mind, but it’s definitely the personalized visualization that will be remembered the most.
“We built a visualization engine about how clouds form because Richard Wright was an amateur photographer who took thousands of pictures of clouds,” Wiesler said. Cross that with data and neuroscience and you have the Cloud Gallery.
“Enjoy your cloud,” the PR person tells me before I wander into the huge room to watch my brain on screen, moments after Imogen Heap does exactly the same. Due to measures taken to maintain anonymity, only you will know which cloud is yours, but the look in your eyes can tell.
From ASMR to brain-themed museum exhibits, there’s a growing interest in what music does to our brains, but there’s something about Pink Floyd’s music that makes it perfect for such an exhibit. “Due to popular demand,” Brainstorms has already added new dates to its London residency, organizers said, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually reaches other cities and immersive venues around the world.
