This Sunday evening at the Cultural Center’s Yates Gallery, Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist Katinka Kleijn will play more than her usual instrument—she’ll be wearing an EPOC Neuroheadset, an electroencephalography (EEG) device whose 14 sensors connect with the scalp and pick up brain waves. Retailing for $299, it’s designed largely for gamers, but Kleijn will use it to give the world premiere of Intelligence in the Human-Machine, a new duet for cello and brain waves composed by Daniel R. Dehaan in collaboration with Ryan Ingebritsen. (It’s a commission by art duo Industry of the Ordinary, aka Adam Brooks and Matthew Wilson, for an ongoing retrospective at the Cultural Center called Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.) With the headset on, Kleijn may look like she’s indulging in Jetsons-style retrofuturism, but the piece is no joke—and neither is the EPOC. It might get laughed out of a laboratory, but it does work.
via Chicago Reader
(Thanks, Ari!)
