4. 1975 EEG: Video Telemetry Environment Houston
In 1975, The EEG Video Telemetry Environment, opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas. The show included two other installations and was titled 'Gulf Coast, East Coast, West Coast', curated by Jim Harithas and assisted by Paul Schimmel. I constructed a typical living room environment-a couch, a coffee table, and a television. On the television screen were the people's faces, superimposed with what I termed their brain wave drawings. These were similar to the Lissajous pattern on the oscilloscope at Dr. Sterman's lab. With the remote control between them, they could start and stop and rewind what they made together much like our first attempts. This was a very important interactive concept for me, even at the neuropsychology lab. Giving people an active part in learning how to use the technology; to demystify the technology, so that they could utilize it, and to understand what they were creating together for themselves was very important to me. Having them see the use of the television screen as an active rather than passive, non-goal oriented viewing experience, where they could choose what and how an image appeared on the screen was as equally important. A wall separated them from other museum visitors; the equipment and four monitors to either side of a closed circuit projection of the participants in the living room environment were arranged in an arc. After the first couple of museum visitors participated, I put their 'drawings' on one of the monitors adjacent to the closed circuit projector and continued this pattern until there were hours of past participants sessions playing back on the four monitors. As visitors waited or observed, they could view the people inside the living room or past participants work, and also get briefed on the equipment before participating. |