The gallery installation
The installation consists mainly of an ammonite-looking sculpture that hangs from the ceiling in three steel wires. It is constructed from a smooth, shiny white plastic and is lit from below by a cool glow. A faint rumble can be heard emitting from the piece. In front of the conch there is a small cushion and a button. This is where you will sit and play music – using nothing but the force of you mind. It will be a profound and spiritual experience where you are sensing directly with you mind, pushing with you thoughts.
Before you can interact with the piece you must put on a headset that can read your mind. An assistant in the gallery will help you put this on before you enter the conch room. Together you will look at a small screen indicating the connectivity of each sensor while you are fitting the headset. This will take about a minute.
Once the headset is properly connected and powered up, you can step into the room with the conch. There you will sit down and push the button which will start your session. The conch will in a quiet voice guide you through the steps needed to record your unique brain profile, which it needs to recognize your actions. You will be asked to concentrate on the sound and imagine lifting it with the pure force of your mind. To aid you in this there are sounds and visuals in the room. You can for instance focus on the dim light and try to make it stronger. As you push mentally on the light the dissonant chord becomes lounder and more harmonious. Don't try and move mountains, just think clearly and calmly. As you push at full strength the sound fills the whole room and the conch is blasted with light. Likewise the pitch will fall as you let go. After the training you can immediately interact with the sound. The degree in which you have control depends on how successful your training was, but every user will experience some level of control and every user will hear how the sound’s character changes based on their own excitement and frustration.
Performances
At the opening for shows exhibiting the subConch I plan to conduct a short performance. Accompanied by visuals and using an expert mode where I am able to control many more parameters of the sound, I will do a 5-10 minute "noise piece" using only my mind to generate the audio. I also hope to do sessions with other musicians as well as develop instruments that are specifically designed to accompany the subConch. However, these are paths I will not pursue before the gallery installation is up and running.
The software application
The subConch Software Application is made for PCs only. I developed it using C++, Qt, The Synthesis ToolKit, irrKlang, SDL, Boost and the Emotiv SDK. The hardware and software used to read the EEG signals as well as the machine learning and profile handling used for training and cognitive control is developed by Emotiv Systems. Which basically means they created all the magic and I just used it to make art. The application lets you control a simple synthesizer with a few basic properties: volume, pitch, modulation frequency, LFO speed, LFO depth, wave shape and reverb. It includes a basic visualization of your audio waveform, a visual feedback of sensor connectivity and an interface with visual controls for the various audio properties. It also provides you with the ability to customize links between the various cognitive and emotional aspects provided. The basic setup is controlling pitch by thinking "up" and "down", while you can control the other aspects by thiking "rotate clockwise" and "rotate counter clockwise". To change with parameter you are controlling with "rotation" you can use you facial expressions. The selected controller will be highlighted in the interface. The application also lets you save and load user profiles. In addition it outputs data as OSC packets via UDP. This way you can turn off the internal synth and use it with MAX or PD (which is what I do for the gallery installation).