Automatic
exhibition, 301 Gallery, 2019
What if you could see the inner rhythm of an artist at work? Automatic began with a fascination with the moment when thought becomes mark, when an idea travels from mind to hand to action. Together, creative technologist Andrew Sliwinski and I built a machine that visualizes the electrical patterns of a working artist's brain. Our Automatic Drawing Machine (ADM) takes its inspiration from the Surrealists, who believed that suppressing conscious control could reveal deeper truths about the creative process. But instead of asking artists to quiet their minds, we invited them to do their work while our machine captured the electrical impulses playing beneath their focused attention.
Eight artists agreed to be part of this experiment, each bringing their own practice — painting, drawing, writing, woodworking, computer programming — while wearing EEG sensors that read their brain activity. As they worked, our custom software transformed their neural patterns into lines and marks, creating drawings that existed parallel to whatever they were making with their hands. The result was a kind of creative duet: the artist's conscious work alongside the unconscious electrical patterns that the ADM translated into a visual language. These brain-generated drawings were then plotted onto paper using a computer-controlled pen, creating physical artifacts of mental states. The exhibition for Automatic displayed the each artist’s work alongside their unique brainwave drawings, inviting viewers to draw their own connections between conscious intention and unconscious neural activity that underlies all creative work.
This project was made possible through support from Montserrat College of Art and Montserrat Galleries.
Eight artists agreed to be part of this experiment, each bringing their own practice — painting, drawing, writing, woodworking, computer programming — while wearing EEG sensors that read their brain activity. As they worked, our custom software transformed their neural patterns into lines and marks, creating drawings that existed parallel to whatever they were making with their hands. The result was a kind of creative duet: the artist's conscious work alongside the unconscious electrical patterns that the ADM translated into a visual language. These brain-generated drawings were then plotted onto paper using a computer-controlled pen, creating physical artifacts of mental states. The exhibition for Automatic displayed the each artist’s work alongside their unique brainwave drawings, inviting viewers to draw their own connections between conscious intention and unconscious neural activity that underlies all creative work.
This project was made possible through support from Montserrat College of Art and Montserrat Galleries.
ADM helmet detail.
Student using the ADM while painting.
Student using the ADM while letterpress printing; on screen is the corresponding drawing being made using the artist’s EEG data.
Left: An artist drawing. Right: a visualization of their corresponding EEG data.
Left: Artist’s finished drawing.
Right: Corresponding ADM drawing.Left: Video documentation of an artist wearing the ADM helmet while woodworking. Right: the artist’s ADM drawing happening simultaneously (no audio).
Audio / video doumentation of an artist playing a banjo in a duet while wearing the ADM helmet.
A selection of ADM-generated drawings, made using participating artists’ EEG data processed through custom software.
ADM drawing detail.
An ADM drawing being plotted.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view with live projection from the ADM.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view; tabletop audio / video on iPads.
Exhibition view; process work and statement.
Exhibition view.