Catalog Essay for:

Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific

Co-presented by Fulcrum Arts and Chapman University | September 15, 2024 - January 19, 2025

Embodied Vibrations: Of Senses And Sensors And Metaphors As Meta Force

We have detected gravitational waves! We did it!”

David Reitze, Executive Director,

Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO)[1]

We’ve been studying black holes for so long, that it’s easy to forget that none of us has actually seen one.”

France Córdova, Director, National Science Foundation[2]

BEYOND PERCEPTION

The statements above illustrate ways we tend to engage with representations of imperceptible phenomena. They capture the fervor with which we commemorate the outcomes of scientific exploration, simultaneously highlighting our detachment from the realm of terrestrial and extraterrestrial micro and macro phenomena. Our immediate physical experience is shaped by processes of perception, observation, identification, and representation. Our consciousness, however, extends beyond what our senses directly perceive; it is shaped by information and knowledge we have about forces beyond our immediate grasp. Thus, the richness of our direct sensory experience is deepened by a wealth of vibrations signaling the awe-inspiring abundance of energetic occurrences present in our every day.

Consider, for instance, the vast range of electromagnetic oscillations all around us, most of which elude our direct perception. With our eyes, we can perceive a mere 0.0035 percent of the electromagnetic spectrum as visible light. We sense infrared as heat, but gamma rays, y-rays, x-rays, ultraviolet, microwaves, and radio waves remain imperceptible. Fortunately, we have scientific instruments to serve as indispensable mediators and translators, enabling access to phenomena that necessitate transposition, mapping, reduction, or magnification to render them intelligible within the “limited” frame of our human cognition. These unsensual data, when passed through instruments of mediation, emerge as materials sensorially available to us.

We humans are specialists in making physically absent things present, and we have a great capacity to render the abstract tangible through language and the nonmaterial culture we have developed. Employing metaphors, symbols, and narratives, we traverse the chasm between the concealed and the cognizable, engendering a profound nexus with the enigmatic dimensions of our existence. In the sciences, representation functions as instrumental conduit, permitting the extension of our cognitive faculties into the vibrational frontiers of the world. By conceiving and formulating models that facilitate our perceptions of these concealed phenomena, we strive to grasp them hypothetically and even via prosthetic devices.

Analogous to rendering imperceptible micro and macro worlds tangible in the sciences is the use of art to create awareness. Art manifests the processes, structures, and functions that exist in social and mental realms but remain beyond the scope of externalized, or better, materialized awareness. Art is a kind of public self-awareness in which we direct our attention to initially overlooked aspects of our life-world and encode them in a tangible form. In both the scientific and artistic realms, we employ creative processes to convey abstract systems, relationships, concepts, theories, ideologies, and realities through aesthetic arrangements like diagrams and models or images, objects, installations, and performances. Intriguingly, and typically more ignored in discussions of scientific facts, neither the visualization of (or otherwise sensualized) scientific data nor the artistic representations of facts and circumstances align precisely with their subjects in a straightforward equation. This is so second nature to us that we rarely pay attention to it. A model of the solar system simplifies vast complexities into something graspable, but it’s far from the real cosmic dance. Nobody will claim there is no difference between the two, but the one stands in for the other as a matter of convention. Consider for a moment that almost all you know about the universe and much of what you know about earth comes to you indirectly, as abstraction.

Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper’s theory of mental “worlds” is helpful here. His concept of World 1, World 2, and World 3 categorizes reality into three domains. World 1 represents the physical universe. World 2 encompasses our subjective experiences and consciousness, and World 3 accounts for nonmaterial culture, including language, beliefs, and scientific knowledge. These three worlds interact and shape our understanding of reality. Our representations (World 3) hence form a level that lives between the physical (World 1) and the experiential (World 2), functioning as a bridge in and through reality.[3] This intermediary layer also offers a space for science and art to converge and tangle, which occurs as we ponder the intricate interplay between the seen and the unseen, the tangible and the intangible, the sensed and that which exists beyond our senses.

What if we didn’t need World 3 to help us comprehend gravitational waves or electromagnetism and instead could directly sense these forces? Is there a future when we become cyborgs supported by networks of artificial intelligence, advocates of high-tech body modifications that give us a direct sensory experience of these phenomena? And what sensory relations might exist between the body and its prosthetics, between the organic and synthetic materials of the new self? How would it feel, and how would this “feeling like” affect our experience of the world? In “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” Thomas Nagel argues that there are aspects of conscious experience that are purely subjective: “An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.”[4] We may try to imagine what it is like to be a bat; how it might feel to hang upside down to sleep or flap wings to fly, or what it would be like to use echolocation to navigate the world. But we will only ever be able to approach these experiences from an exteriority, as imagined images and feelings. Similarly, many vibrational energies elude human experience, but we can represent and comprehend them in ways that imagine embodiment and make them relational to us. It is essential to underscore the critical significance of these creative approaches: beyond mere measurement, these are the ways we interrogate, represent, and convey measurements and data sets. It is here that science’s link to the arts and to the practices of the artist- researcher become vital. Visual, linguistic, kinetic, and sonic representations stand in lieu of the actual phenomena; objects, models, metaphors, and poetic interpretations map the extrasensory onto our actual senses. Moreover, such artworks not only can explicate the vast expanse of space, mercurial microcosmic worlds, and complex brain activities— beyond these realms they may reveal personal dreams, political utopias, and trans-/ post-human musings. Artistic expression, moving in parallel with technological progress, is responsive to paradigmatic shifts and developments. But despite shifting phenotypes, types, throughout art history we perceive an enduring undercurrent as a persistent theme: humanity’s endless pursuit of the enigmatic unknown and the urge to represent invisible realities.

EMERGING BODIES 

It is important to outline, in a radically condensed form, the development of a critical strand of thinking about our access to the world that has influenced scientific discovery over the past few hundred years. During the twentieth century, phenomenology steadily became the focus of modern philosophical inquiry. Edmund Husserl adopted the concept from Georg Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and considered it a scientific endeavor guided by the “evidence” derived from the immediate experience of being conscious. According to Husserl, this approach is “intended to provide the fundamental organon for a strictly scientific philosophy and, as a result, to enable a methodical reform of all sciences.”[5]  

Consciousness, according to Husserl, is always directed towards an object; it is always of or about something. Consciousness is thus an experience of intentionality. It is not itself an object, but rather the qualitative basis through which we experience objects. This perspective seems to cast doubts on objectivism while giving rise to a budding mode of thought that relates to its subject from a first-person standpoint, perceiving it as intricately woven into the fabric of the world and thus forming a foundation for all cognition. In essence, the human perceiver begins to acknowledge themselves as an integral part of the world, shaping the very perception they experience.

Building upon Husserl’s work, Martin Heidegger expounded on this idea, recognizing us as intimately intertwined with our surroundings as we contemplate and analyze everyday occurrences. Inextricably linked to a specific social and cultural context and engaging in often-unconscious practical activities like walking, speaking our native language, or using tools, we become an essential component of the environment that in turn shapes our perception of the world.[6] Maurice Merleau-Ponty took this notion further, placing paramount importance on corporeality and the profound connection between the body and the world: “The world seen is not ‘in’ my body, and my body is not ‘in’ the visible world ultimately: as flesh applied to a flesh, the world neither surrounds it nor is surrounded by it. A participation in and kinship with the visible, the vision neither envelops it nor is enveloped by it definitively.”[7] He describes the ambiguity of our existence as an oscillation between consciousness and thingness—each of us is a thing that is aware of itself. Like a hand touching itself, we are the object and the observer of the object, the experiencer and experienced, the perceiver whose perception is also directed towards oneself.

Influenced by treatises on phenomenology by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau- Ponty, more recent scholars engaging with cognitive science and the philosophy of consciousness have developed the idea that the entire body and its situatedness in the world form the foundation for consciousness, and that consciousness is shaped by the peculiarities and qualities of the body in and within its environment. These thinkers believe physical engagement with the world directly influences states of consciousness and its formation more broadly. Summarized under the term “embodied cognition,” their approach represents a profound shift in cognitive science and encompasses a broad interdisciplinary research field, incorporating philosophy, linguistics, robotics, artificial intelligence, psychology, animal cognition, and neuroscience.

In their 1980 book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson elucidate how language is imbued with metaphors for the body that influence every aspect of our communication, from the most basic to the highly complex.[8] For example, the notion of affection as warmth links physical temperature to emotional closeness, as seen in phrases like “I have warm feelings for you,” demonstrating how our bodily experiences shape our understanding of abstract ideas. The uprightness metaphor connects body posture to moral integrity; phrases like “standing up for your beliefs” or “falling from grace” draw on our physical experiences of standing and falling to convey attitudes and judgments. These embodied metaphors, drawn from physical experiences, profoundly influence language and thought, shaping our individual cognition and in turn influencing societal norms, values, and political ideologies.  

Extending past linguistics, in Action’s Influence on Thought: The Case of Gesture, Susan Goldin-Meadow and Sian Beilock argue that “gestures contain detailed perceptual- motor information about the actions they represent, information often not found in the speech that accompanies the gestures... Gesture actively brings action into a speaker’s mental representations, and those mental representations then affect behavior—at times more powerfully than the actions on which the gestures are based. Gesture thus has the potential to serve as a unique bridge between action and abstract thought.”[9] Gestures are not mere byproducts of thought but are integral to cognitive processes, suggesting that bodily actions can both reflect and shape thinking.

Extrapolating further, Andy Clark and David Chalmers’s The Extended Mind posits that the mind, or consciousness, is not confined solely to the body but extends into the physical world. In other words, extracorporeal objects, such as our phones, are considered to participate in consciousness: “We advocate for a very different sort of externalism: an active externalism, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.”[10] They illustrate this point using a case study involving a fictitious character, Otto, who grapples with mild dementia and relies on a notebook to remember various things, such as directions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They contend that for people like Otto, such notebooks serve as information repositories, operating akin to how memory operates for cognitively healthy individuals. Thus, the notebook is an indispensable component of Otto’s cognitive process.

As diverse and as specific to finer- grained discourses as these endeavors are, studies of embodied cognition share a common thread: they challenge the dualistic Cartesian model of a rigid division between mind and body, which continues to shape conventional thinking about perceptual interiority and exteriority. Within explorations of embodied cognition, we witness a compelling effort to locate experience as embracing and arising from a web of physical, social, and cultural connections. Recent advances in neuroscience, philosophy, and technology, coupled with a nuanced view of subjectivity, have fueled interest in subjectivist approaches to studying consciousness.[11] These approaches are indicative of an understanding of the world as a collection of processes rather than fixed objects. As physicality becomes central to the way we reframe consciousness, the transient quality of the physical highlights the processual nature of systems interacting in the world. Phenomena of the mind show themselves to be arising from fluid interactions rather than constituting unchanging essences. As a result, consciousness itself is subject to the configurations that give rise to it. The once-clear boundaries between mind and body, which prevailed until recent times philosophically and still extend into our colloquialisms, are now more blurred than ever.

POST-MECHANISTIC PARADIGMS  

Scientific method is a mode of investigation that primarily evolved from Western thought, deeply influenced by its Abrahamic origins as well as the rational inquiry promoted during the Enlightenment. It often conceptualizes the universe as a hierarchically-mechanically functioning creation, akin to clockwork, operating according to the rules that govern it. This concept rigidly separates everything within the world, most notably us humans from our environment, proposing binary paradigms and situating understandings in notions of subject-object, God-human, human-nature, and inside-outside, each of which is laden with underlying power dynamics. Of course, this mechanistic worldview presents numerous advantages to unraveling natural phenomena. Its structured approach allows one to comprehend labyrinthine frameworks by dissecting them into simpler constituents, facilitating analysis of their interactions. This methodology also enhances predictability, enabling the development of models and precise calculations grounded in cause-and effect relationships. Furthermore, it drives technological advancements, empowering us to engineer sophisticated machinery and systems. Scientific method has undeniably propelled scientific (and consequently cultural and social) progress, offering an organized way to explore and grasp the universe’s functioning intricacies. However, its downside lies in oversimplifying elaborate structures, disregarding their interconnections and emergent properties. A bias toward traditional scientific methods might impede a holistic understanding, as it predominantly focuses on individual parts rather than entire systems. Moreover, the approach might limit our perception and interpretation of phenomena operating beyond linear cause and- effect relationships, effecting our comprehension of intricate biological, ecological, or social networks. On the other hand, a method of inquiry centering the idea of a steadily evolving, decentral and interconnected world and alternative paradigms offers more comprehensive insights into the entanglements of the natural world. In neuroscience and embodied cognition, the brain is understood as part of the dynamic organization of the body that itself is part of and interacting with its environment. This approach emphasizes the influence of a mesh of external systems on consciousness, transcending the limitations of a mechanistic framework and offering a

more integrated understanding of consciousness and its relationship with the world. This method of inquiry has also been taken up by artists to pose questions that move beyond the linearity of a mechanistic worldview and suggest an expanded set of relations between self and the world. They make use of an open playing field for differently structured investigations, one that provides creative permission to explore phenomena in a porous and often multidisciplinary way. Our evolving view of the world recognizes the interconnectedness of our society and what we call nature, encouraging comprehensive understanding, ecological ethics, and global responsibility and influencing how we approach science, philosophy, and cooperation across academic fields. In this context, the embodiment of intangible vibrations challenges conventional boundaries of consciousness.

The following sections explore three works by three artists native to the Pacific Rim which contemplate the interiority of perception (the perceiving body) and the models of exteriority that permit us to reach into the enigma of “outsideness.” While these works are grounded in technology and scientific methodologies, they wonder: What might be the modes of encounter with vibrational forces? What do different incarnations of these forces lead us to believe about them? How does their embodiment expand and influence our consciousness? If we take seriously the profound impact our own embodied experience has on what we call our consciousness or mind and the notions of the extended mind theory as laid out by Clark and Chalmers, what does sensualized data mean for our understanding of the world and ourselves in it?

LA PARACANTORA: EMBODIED HYPEROBJECTS

Chilean artist Nicole L’Huillier’s sound sculpture La Paracantora (2019) delves into the human encounter with invisible natural forces. The work consists of an eight-and-a-halffoot- tall tripod mounted with a multitude of sensors connected via computer and amplifier to six colorful loudspeakers. The sensors measure air pressure, altitude, temperature, acceleration, electromagnetic fields, wind, light, proximity, and vibrations. The speakers, which point in multiple directions, translate the sensor data into sounds. The work has been installed at some of the world’s most advanced sites for the exploration of the cosmos, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland and the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The artwork conveys a message that invites contemplation, directing attention to the immediate surroundings. Implicit within this message is an assertion that the remarkable phenomena represented by La Paracantora, albeit intangible, are not distant or theoretical but part of the observer’s reality. The work’s sensors are set globally, effectively capturing the unique environmental conditions of each location where it is installed. During a 2019 performance at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, La Paracantora interpreted the surroundings. Operating at a quarter mile above sea level, the work’s altimeter and thermometer generated readings, translating invisible forces into a medley of droning, hissing, and gurgling sounds within the catacomb- like environment. A few months later, at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array Observatory nestled in Chile’s Atacama Desert, situated two miles above sea level and exposed to a forty-degree temperature shift between day and night, the work emitted notably different sounds, producing a soft, repetitive melody complemented by gentle undulating tones almost amounting to a musical chord. Subsequently, at the Paranal Observatory, also in the Atacama Desert, La Paracantora transitioned between birdlike chirping and serene bubbling reminiscent of a cascading mountain stream.

L’Huillier, who is a musician and experimental composer and holds a PhD in me- dia arts and sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the audio to represent invisible forces through an intuitive process. The artist has said she was mimicking nature’s signals, for instance translating vibrational data into granular percussive sounds or transforming wind patterns into swirling and scraping noises. The work creates different auditory landscapes, each possessing a unique, dynamic character and offering a precise reflection of its genius loci. La Paracantora conveys a natural manifestation in an electronic form; it is an instrument played by the forces of nature. As L’Huillier says, “La Paracantora is an artifact that helped me to explore CERN from other sensitivities and to engage with the performative conditions of our reality(s) through the sonic dimension. It became a bridge with the unknown, the invisible, and the cosmic mysteries that are being explored there every day. This experiment was for me a way of practicing listening as a means to encounter the multiple realities, temporalities, agencies, and dimensions we inhabit.”[12]

La Paracantora is a sonic analog to tomography, a shamanic device through which layers of reality are brought forth. It acts as the proverbial ambassador for Timothy Morton’s hyperobjects, structures so extended in time and space (like atmospheric rivers, the ozone layer, or ocean circulation) that we have no sensibilities for them, as we are embedded within these processes.[13]

La Paracantora “could have [...] been a computer and a sound system, that’s all you need,”[14] says L’Huiller. This gets to the heart of the problem, namely that invisible or inaudible forces can only play a role if they are heard or seen. The public nature of the sculpture is evident in its appearance: “Bright colors and weird shapes, that’s me” says the artist with a smile, making clear in passing that poetry needs no justification. In contrast to purely scientific instruments, La Paracantora raises the question of the social function of data, emphasized by the design of the work. The loudspeakers pointing in different directions signal the work is aimed at a broad public:  “The speakers are not earphones. They’re not for one, they’re for many.”

La Paracantora is not an immersive, surround-sound installation emulating the vaporous presence of the detected invisible forces. Instead, it serenades us from a single point. The work thus engages not only in the sonification, but in the personification of nature; it is an eccentric vocalizer, weaving together various forces that become, embodied as La Paracantora, music to our ears. The title of the work, “the Parasinger” in English, takes a feminine noun in the Spanish, highlighting the channeling of elemental energies through a female singer as central. Referring to the work as a singer, given the ethereal and shapeless nature of the summoned forces, is a sagacious choice, acknowledging the profound role that singing plays in human experience. According to Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, singing predates our language, and our speech developed from indefinite guttural contact sounds.[15]

Against this backdrop, what is perhaps the most intriguing fact, as beautiful as it is perplexing, is that the scientific staff at CERN embraced L’Huillier’s vision and joined in singing with the artwork, humming and chanting along with the work’s divestments. Singing, unlike speech, can transcend the need for words. It doesn’t rely on metaphors or symbolism to make its presence known; rather, it emerges as a pure vibration that exist in itself, not representing something else. In this manner, L’Huillier achieves the remarkable feat of bringing dimensions of reality that we can only intellectually experience closer to us, in a human and genuine manner.

La Paracantora is a messenger of the imperceptible and a memorial to transhumanism. One can only speculate about the nature of the communication that occurred at CERN. The episode demonstrates, however, that in order for us to engage with phenomena we must perceive our reflection in them. Human truth and cosmic truth may lie beyond what can be expressed in words—beyond what can be fully grasped intellectually. However, it may not be beyond what can be sung, or to freely paraphrase the lighthearted yet profound Alan Watts, we might be able to express it with that which swings.

NANOVIBRANCY: A MONUMENTAL EARDRUM

Our ears are sensitive instruments that enable us to detect vibrations that move the eardrum by less than one picometer—one thousandth of a nanometer, or about 100 times smaller than a hydrogen atom.[16] Joel Ong’s four-hour performance installation Nanovibrancy (2011) harnesses the potential of an expanded sensorium and directs it towards exploring its own unique qualities. In this case, the work eavesdrops on the sound of the human eardrum, asking: “What would the eardrum sound like if we were small enough to stand near it?”[17] We can hypothesize that if we could shrink to microscopic size, we would be exposed to a bewildering and hazardous microcosmos, the once-familiar world transformed into a colossal and threatening landscape. Air molecules would be densely packed and viscous like honey and oxygen would be scarce, posing severe challenges to breathing. Gravity’s grip on us would weaken, making controlled movements difficult. Temperature fluctuations would become extreme, jeopardizing survival. Our mobility would be restricted by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, while our usual communication methods would be virtually useless.[18]

In July 2011, Ong, who is an associate professor for computational arts at York University in Toronto, managed to metaphorically shrink by utilizing a scanning electron microscope and a model tympanic membrane at John Curtin Gallery at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. Ong reappropriated the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), an instrument originally designed for imaging rather than sonification. The architecture of the microscope makes it well suited to capture sounds: Conventional optical microscopes use light to view the sample under investigation, but as the size of the sample decreases, making it bright enough to see becomes increasingly challenging. Moreover, the magnification capability of optical microscopy does not extend beyond two micrometers, which is slightly smaller than the diameter of a string of a spider’s web. Only with electron and scanning-probe microscopes like the AFM can we see into the nanoscale realm. Of course, “seeing” might not be entirely appropriate here: Paradoxically, electron and scanning-probe microscopes operate in a state of blindness, employing a probing molecule to map the sample’s topography by scanning its atoms row by row. The acquired data is then digitally processed into images through algorithms.

In Nanovibrancy, the AFM remains stationary, fixed on an artificial eardrum made from silk. The microscope is responsive to the eardrum’s vibrations without causing it to move. Ong positioned the AFM’s cantilever, a silicon nitride arm featuring a tip measuring approximately one-third of a millimeter wide, over the silk eardrum. As the silk subtly vibrated in response to its surroundings, the AFM made recordings, and the oscillations were scrutinized through laser reflections atop the cantilever. The voltage displacements were measured and then amplified and broadcast as multichannel sound into the gallery space, providing an auditory representation of the immediate acoustic environment as perceived by the eardrum.

Nanovibrancy reveals a universal facet of human perception, namely that our sensory input is a form of touch, and that all sensing therefore is a form of physical interaction. For instance, in vision, photons touch surfaces and engage with eye cells. Hearing results from air pressure waves physically impacting eardrums, while taste and smell involve molecular interactions with mouth and nose receptors. According to Ong, “At the microscopic level, sound entails the physical vibration of atoms and molecules, propagating waves through the air, and eventually impinging upon our eardrums. In Nanovibrancy, the AFM exposes this intricate soundscape by recording and amplifying nanoscale amplitudes of sound as the membrane assumes the role of listener.”[19]

Everyday sounds would likely be experienced as extraordinarily intense in nano conditions. Sound frequencies would seem significantly higher, potentially in the ultrasonic or even hypersonic range. The body might even sense these sounds as intense vibrations or even structural movements within its tissues. Resonance effects and distortion might occur, and biological responses to sound, such as changes in cell behavior or tissue heating, might be more pronounced. While the exact quality of sound perception at such a scale remains speculative, Ong’s work creates a powerful analog: “Part of me bringing it out of the science lab into a gallery space and recontextualizing the apparatus there was that the vibrations that were coming out of the performance were shared as a four-channel surround soundscape, and it was pretty loud. Obviously, you can‘t do that in a lab because the vibrations would skew your readings entirely.”[20]

Nanovibrancy also recontextualizes the scientific experiment, taking it from the controlled environment of the lab to the dynamic space of a gallery. Moving millions of dollars’ worth of scientific equipment into a gallery setting, Ong emphasizes the physical and experiential aspects of scientific endeavors. The volume of the transmission and its impact on the space and listeners poetically mimicked the volatile conditions of the nano realm and could be felt to the bone. The resonant frequencies and acoustic characteristics of the room intermingled with the transmissions, heightening the immersive experience and adding another layer of complexity to the sonic interplay. Thus, the performance’s highly dynamic soundscape challenged the paradigm of scientific observation as a purely visual process. Static visual observation suggests permanence; it portrays its findings as objects rather than ongoing processes, as nouns instead of verbs. While images freeze time and allow us to meticulously examine samples that existed at a specific moment, the context and interconnectedness in which events unfold remain concealed. Before discovering acoustic ecology as a biology student at the University of Singapore, Ong recalls he would “go out into the environment and think about it quantitatively. Let’s measure conditions, let’s analyze intertidal zones. Up until that point, I never realized that this information could be shared through sound. Acoustic ecology became for me a way to go into the environment and understand it the same way a scientist would but through sound.”[21]

Central to Nanovibrancy is an exploration of the complexities of human hearing, where the ear simultaneously functions as both the mechanism for and the content of the listening process. This arrangement resonates with Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the self-touching hand, as the act of listening becomes an experience that is as introspective as it is outwardly engaging. Ong conceptualizes the notion of the ground of listening, membranic resonance, into a kaleidoscopic array of membranes on display and otherwise involved in the performance. The interplay between the eardrum membrane (the silk sample), the translating membrane (the speaker), and the receiving membrane (listeners’ ears) interweaves perceptual models, creating a multidimensional topography of membranes sending and receiving. Furthermore, the bodily experience of sound vibrations brings awareness to the corporeality of sound, metaphorically placing the listener into the alien nanoscape. Bridging the gap between scientific experiment and artistic expression, Nanovibrancy points at the changing nature of academic disciplines while prompting audiences to reflect on the interplay of sound, perception, scale, and space. As Ong summarizes, “Observing these small systems reminds us of our place in the larger environment and our role within a vast global system. The work not only offers an artistic perspective on nanoscale phenomena but also prompts us to consider our position in the grand tapestry of existence.”[22]

HEMISPHERES: THE BRAIN IN THE SKY OF OUR MIND

Multimedia artist Chun Shao reclined on an Eames lounge chair in the corner of an old brownstone building at King Street Station in Seattle. On her head, she wore a red cap encircled with electrodes connected via cables to a mixing and control panel. Composer Juan Pampin instructed, “Imagine you’re in the forest. Relax, listen to the birds.” Shao followed Pampin’s direction, listening attentively to the soundscape that was being projected three-dimensionally into the space. Pampin sat opposite Shao across the room, behind the control panel. Nearby, empty chairs awaited the audience that would soon witness their efforts, the performance Hemispheres (2016). Pampin then directed, “Now, try to predict the next sequence of sounds and then disengage from listening and calm your mind.”

Shao’s cognitive processes, as she attuned to different aspects of the soundscape, were recorded through the electrodes. Initially, Pampin recorded her alpha waves. These are the most dominant brainwaves, in the frequency range of eight to twelve hertz, and indicate a state of deep relaxation and passive attention, comparable to meditation. Pampin then recorded Shao’s delta, theta, and beta waves. Theta and delta waves, characterized by frequencies ranging in the lower registers from 0.5 to eight hertz, signify states of extreme calmness and sleep, respectively, while beta waves, with frequencies ranging higher than alpha waves from twelve to thirty- five hertz, signify wakefulness and active outward-directed attention.

Pampin, who is a professor and chair of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington, employed simple click sounds and sine tones to acoustically represent Shao’s different brainwave signals when their amplitudes exceed a specific threshold. Consequently, the interplay of signals from various brain cortices generated a staccato-like pattern of polyrhythmic pulses, which, while exhibiting a subtle and evolving periodicity, was not danceable. “This whole idea of rhythms to my surprise is reflected in scientific terminology,” he explains. “So, when the performer is relaxed with eyes closed scientists refer to it as the posteriorly dominant alpha rhythm. The rhythms we detect are neither entirely random nor precise; they move around the median of a band and tend to have structure. Of course, it’s hard to say it’s a 3/4 against a 5/8, but they tend to have  regularity.”[23]

While Pampin uses minimal and naturalistic sounds to represent the spikes in brain activity, he remains deeply interested in a creative and intuitive approach, where brainwaves serve as a tool rather than a self-contained theme. This distinguishes Hemispheres from its grandparent, Alvin Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer (1965), the first artwork to use brainwaves to generate music. Lucier’s alpha signals, detected by two electrodes attached to his head, directed a series of electromechanical percussive instruments. Once Lucier relaxed enough to reach a state of steady wave flow, the work primarily explored non-intentionality and noninterference. “You get into a state that produces waves and then you just let it go. Some parts of hemispheres are very similar, but composition and artistic expression are the main protagonists of hemispheres.” But Pampin, rather than simply observing brainwaves, chose to incorporate changes in their activity back into his composition.

A key feature of Hemispheres is its use of three-dimensional sound. Over the audience’s seating area, a dome-shaped rigging truss suspended twenty loudspeakers, mirroring the electrodes encircling Shao’s head. Pampin  began the performance with simple sounds he described as “lab sounds,” sine tones that occur singly or layered, modulating each other, as well as synthesized sounds from an analysis of a bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument developed in nineteenth-century Germany and predominantly found in Argentine tango music. While the piece unfolded, Pampin mixed in more complex waveforms, eventually incorporating field recordings of forests, wind, and water. Shao began shifting her attention between the field recordings and the sounds produced by her own brainwaves, as the piece became sonically fuller, creating a feedback loop of action and reaction. Over time, Shao’s visual cortex became more active, and the audience perceived an increase in sonic activity behind and above them. And when she was emotionally engaged, the sounds moved to the front and above, echoing the activity in Shao’s brain regions. The result was an elaborate piece of sonic geography in which individual layers unfolded and interacted with one another, conceptually mirroring the hemispheres of the brain.

For a second performance of Hemispheres, trombonist Stuart Dempster took on the role of the performer. Dempster is cofounder, with composers Pauline Oliveros and Panaiotis, of the Deep Listening Band, a musical ensemble established in 1988. Their ensemble explored the concept of deep listening, an attentive awareness of sound and the environment, by creating immersive and improvisational sonic experiences that encouraged listeners to connect with their auditory surroundings. Dempster is well accustomed to immersive states of deep relaxation as well as intense focus, and he was instantaneously able to access and modulate these states when he was connected to ‘Hemispheres’ electroencephalogram. As Pampin recalls, “The incoming signal was so strong, I had to use a compressor. But Stuart knew how far he could go. If you have practiced meditation or deep listening, you know how deeply you can delve into these states and how to enter and exit them. It’s like controlling your brain in a specific way, and that’s how this instrument works. He could have these subtle nuances that were quite delicate.”

While Hemispheres might not explicitly reveal the performer’s inner thoughts or emotions, it does showcase distinctive aspects of their personality, much like playing any other musical instrument would. The performer’s unique traits have a significant impact on the work, shaping it in diverse and unexpected ways. “How does one define the piece? It is not a composition for a specific performer, and each interpreter would create a new version of the piece,” says Pampin. “Hence, it could be entirely different. This aspect fascinates me in terms of what can happen with something that has certain parameters defining its form, but you don’t really know how bumpy the road will be.”

Hemispheres initiates its exploration with the brainwaves of the performer, positing these vibrations as the fundamental essence that constitutes our self-perception as conscious, self-aware entities engaged in the exploration of the world. Pampin’s deliberate choice to project this universally resonant yet profoundly personal domain onto a celestial vault highlights a dual proposition: First, it confronts us with the externalization of what is presumed to be the source of interiority. Second, and herein lies the inherent paradox, the installation evokes the notion that our conscious experience is underpinned by a sense of infinity, a vast expanse open to all possibilities. This metaphoric juxtapositionnot only challenges our understanding of consciousness and self-awareness but also invites a reevaluation of the interplay between the internal and the external, the finite volume of matter that our bodies inhabit and the infinite expanse of the universe which we are all able to experience within our bodies.

OLD SENSES, NEW SENSIBILITIES

We have yet to develop human senses that can detect our own brain activity, nanoscale sonic events, or electromagnetic waves, let alone see a black hole or feel a gravitational wave. But technology lets our minds venture into these realms, and we can make the forces and vibrations that surround us tangible through art and metaphor. Our ability to engage in creative analogy, artistic expression, poetic articulation, and non-disciplinary research collectively engenders new sensibilities. This emergence occurs not in isolation but through the amalgamation of these various facets. Artworks like La Paracantora, Nanovibrancy, and Hemispheres present intangible phenomena within a specific gestalt; the data collected by scientific instruments is but one constituent part; the body is another. Site, dimensions, appearance, social setting, and any other parameter deemed vital for the work by the artist also have a part in how we come to feel and think about our relationship to the intangible.

Beyond illustration, these works transcend the typical purview of conventional scientific representation, which aims to objectively visualize data and often disregards connections to human experiences and entities not immediately related to that data. To hum along with the electronic “vocalizations” of a piece of technology, to be fully submerged in sonic magma, or to be reclining under a sky of acoustic brainwaves provides a vantage point no chart or table can offer. Furthermore, these works’ real-time translation of data, whether through sonification or visualization, significantly deepens our understanding of the natural world by providing immediate sensory feedback. This instantaneous interpretation offers an intuitive comprehension of data and phenomena as they unfold, unveiling patterns, fluctuations, and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed. It offers us the opportunity to relate to them in our own temporal dimension. The immersive experience enables us to discern subtle nuances and trends, thereby enriching our comprehension of the complex mechanisms within natural systems.

A theory of embodied experience, particularly as articulated in Clark and Chalmer’s extended mind theory, elevates the role of sensualized data in our comprehension of the world and self. It implies the transcendence of our senses within the margins of our biological corporeality into the realms of technology and scientific data. This pseudo-sensorial expansion, in combination and contrasted with a recognition of our own sensory limitations, empowers us to perceive and interact with the world in ways hitherto inconceivable. Engendered by artworks, such interactions blur the line between individual selfhood and external milieu, creating a holistic, interconnected perspective on our human condition. They bring us into a heightened mindfulness of the world around us and a sense of connection with the vastness of reality, simultaneously encouraging a humbler and more open-minded approach to the unknown.

[1] David Reitze, Executive Director, Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO)

[2] France Córdova, Director, National Science Foundation

[3] Karl Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interaction (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1977). — 82

[4] Thomas Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (October 1974): 436.

[5] Edmund Husserl, Husserliana: Band IX: Phänomenologische Psychologie: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925, available at aerzte-fuer-das-leben.de/pdftexte/ overdick-gulden der-mensch-istmehr- banz09.pdf, translation by the author.

[6] Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 67–77. 

[7] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 138.

[8] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

[9] Susan Goldin-Meadow and Sian Beilock, “Action’s Influence on Thought: The Case of Gesture,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5, no. 6 (December 2010): 664.

[10] Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” Analysis 58, no. 1 (January 1998): 7.

[11] Paradoxically, or perhaps quite obviously, the turn to our phenomenal equipment in the Western humanities over the past hundred years is at odds with a strain of scientific study that is increasingly denying direct sensual access: theories precede observations, and observations are corroborated by measurements which are then reified as models. As a result, science has become increasingly abstract throughout the twentieth century. We see here that Husserl’s dream of explaining science from the “immediate experience of consciousness,” leading to a “methodological reform of all sciences,” is as unattainable today as the quantum realm as a vacation spot.

[12] Nicole L’Huillier, quoted in Ana Prendes, “Nicole L’Huillier Pays Homage to Walter Smetak with Her CERN’s Sonic Experiments,” Arts at CERN, arts.cern/ article/Nicole lhuillier-pays-homage- walter-smetak-her-cerns-sonicexperiments.

[13] See Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

[14] L’Huillier, interview with author, 7 June 2022. Subsequent quotes are from this interview.

[15] See Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1922).

[16] Wenxuan He, David Kemp, and Tianying Ren, “Timing of the Reticular Lamina and Basilar Membrane Vibration in Living Gerbil Cochleae,” eLife 7, no. e37625 (2018).

[17]  Joel Ong, “Nanovibrancy: An Auditory Performance of Nanoscale Resonance,” unpublished artist statement available at isea-archives. siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2020/06/ISEA2011_333_Joel- Ong.pdf.

[18] 18. For detailed speculations on how humans might experience the world at nano scale, see “If You Were Shrunk to Microscopic Size Would You be Able to See Normally? Would You Be Able to See Microscopic Things?,” Ask a Mathematician/Ask a Physicist, 2 June 2016, askamathematician. com/2016/06/q-if-you-were-shrunkto- microscopic-size-would you-beable- to-see-normally-would-yoube- able-to-see-microscopic-things/; “Imagicnation #02: What Would Happen if You Were Shrunk?,” Steemit, 2017, steemit.com/science/ @imagicnation/imagicnation-02-orwhat- would-happen-if-you wereshrunk; and Kurzgesagt, “Let’s Travel to the Most Extreme Place in the Universe,” YouTube video, 12:45, 4 October 2022, youtube.com/watch?v=FfWtIaDtfYk.

[19] Ong, “Nanovibrancy: An Auditory Exploration into Nano-scale Resonance,” Vimeo video, 10:26, 28 July 2011, vimeo.com/27036778. 20. Ong, interview with the author, 24 August 2021.

[20] Ong, interview with the author, 24 August 2021.

[21] Ibid. 

[22] 22. Ong, in “Jack Straw New Media Gallery Interview: Joel Ong,” Jack Straw Cultural Center website, jackstraw.org/artist/joel-ong/. 

[23] Juan Pampin, interview with author, 17 May 2022. Subsequent quotes are from this interview.