In the context of his new work Inhibition, Marinos Koutsomichalis present a hands-on production workshop, introducing the participants to open technologies, creative coding and hardware design, and guiding them into making their own individuated headsets. The workshop will conclude with the participants publicly showcasing their creative outcomes and performing with them. Participants may then keep their headsets. 

Inhibition

Inhibition revolves around an ‘intelligent’ headset that is capable of EEG (electroencephalography), algorithmic sound synthesis and machine learning. With the headset on, neurophysical activity is constantly monitored and those particular kinds of sounds that are most likely to inhibit concentration are generated, hindering direct man-machine coupling and destabilising the subject’s cerebral rhythms. In this way a new kind of uncanny ‘meta-mind’ is brought forth, one that is enacted on top of machine learning schemata, neuro-feedback and bio-technological autopoiesis.

Embracing the open-source software/hardware paradigm, Inhibition forwards hands-on audience participation and community-driven experimentation. Electronic schematics, 3d-printable/cnc-millable models and code are made available at www.inhibition-eeg.com, where audiences may also socialise with one another, contribute technical material, and upload images/video showcasing their own creative outcomes.

At the same time, local audiences are invited to create their own individuated headsets in dedicated workshops, to exhibit them alongside the artist’s original prototype, and to participate in a series of performances, technological showcases and impromptu ‘music ensembles’ in-situ. In this way Inhibitions seeks to demystify and to democratise the technologies it revolves around, to inaugurate a creative interlocking between the artist and audiences and, eventually, to become an inter-disciplinary playground where paradigms of emergent, hybrid and synergetic bio-technologically produced cognisance may be tried out. Inhibition has been commissioned by Ars Electronica and the Onassis Cultural Centre.

Marinos Koutsomichalis is a media artist, scholar and creative technologist. He was born in Athens, GR (1981) and has since lived and worked in various cities around the world. His interests comprise hypermediacy, post-humanism, distributed cognition, computational aesthetics and DIWO, while the most persistent themes in his artistic corpus are self-erasure and the post-self. He strives for contextual and geographical disparity so that the working tactics, materials and technologies his projects revolve around are ever-renovated. Accordingly, he has presented his work internationally in all sorts of milieux: from leading museums and biennales, to industrial sites, churches and underground venues and he has pursued research/artistic projects, led workshops and lectured at various academias, institutions and project-spaces worldwide. He is responsible for numerous publications in academic journals and conferences, for a series of music/audio albums, and for writing the ‘Mapping and Visualization with SuperCollider’ book. He is the the founder of ‘Ubique Media’—a company offering ad-hoc software/hardware solutions for media artists—and has worked as a developer in various third-party projects. He has a PhD in Electronic Music and New Media (De Montfort University, GB) and a MA in Composition with Digital Media (University of York, GB).