Relentless (NER 04) (2014)

Relentless is an offline Animation exploring continuous live emotional responses to Artworks in the wild. This work considers (i) the possibilities of objectifying subjective expieriences, (ii) the human form as a singular holistic inteligence, and (iii) digital forms of telepathy.

A mobile 16 channel emotive epoch research headest was used to record a  live neurological signal in response to James Turrels Kermandec (2014), exhibited at the Pace Gallery, London. During the viewing I attempted to 'be' as natural as possible, moving around the artwork, standing still, and also sitting infront of the Artwork. The recorded signal was cleaned in 'Matlab' of artefacts, and then enveloped into 4 second windows which outputed timestamped classification results for Valence and Arousal levels. A further step combined the signals for a singular emotional classification. This dataset was then used to create an offline visualisation using Cinema 4d.  Each emotional class was given a specific primitive shape and sound (Sphere = class 1 (V+, A+), Pyramid = class 2 (V+, A-), Octagon = class 3 (V-, A-), Cube = class 4 (V-, A+). ) Every four seconds a new classification shape drops into the viewing frame to disrupt the scene.

From the recording I learnt how our responsive emotions are in constant flux, with neural 'instructions' continuously dripping through the body to shape our worlds. These instructions create physiological reponses which contribute to emotional experiences. These then loop back to create further neural responses in continuous cascades of feedback loops. The closer we interrogate the hypothesis of the divisional body-brain, the more blurred our understanding of it becomes.The fallen classes remain in view depicting how emotions are stored within the holistic body as a natural function of memory recall.

Further EEG recordings for works were made at  The Hayward Gallery (The Light Show), The Lisson Gallery (Harron Mirza & Tatsuo Miyajima), Tate Modern (Oskar Fischinger), The Serpentine (Jonas Mekas), The Soho Theatre (Bitch Boxer by Chloe Jackson), and The Bush Theatre (Josephine & I, by Cush Jumbo, dir. Phyllida Lloyd).

** (Special thanks to Megan O'Dell and the Pace Gallery London).