Minimalism Show Reflection

 

MEGA DEATH – TATSUO MIYAJIMA 

The perception of human lives in the form of data.

Mega Death is a work that talks about the lifes that were lost to war and conflict in the 20th century.

Miyajima attempt to portray this circle of life through the counting down of digits symbolising death is so fast, that it’s gone before I am able grasp and ponder upon that 1 life amongst the data of millions.

Time waits for no one, death represents not the end, but simply just part of the cycle of life. In a sense, we can say that death is the birth of a new life.

 

ROOM FOR ONE COLOUR – OLAFUR ELIASSON 

The perception of the world around us.

By reducing the colour we see, we are removing “distractions” from our world of sight. This forces us to focus on the details of the things we see. For me, I was carefully observing the features of the people around me and fascinated at the forms of the veins on my palms.

“How does colour help to shape how we view the world?” This was 1 question I had in mind in the installation.

There is this theory of colour perception that we don’t actually see the same colours. A colour I label as blue might not be the same colour in another person’s eyes. These labels were just taught and programmed by us humans to tie what we are seeing to a common name we could use to communicate.

2ch – vtol // brain to brain communication

 

Dmitry Morozov is a Russian multidisciplinary artist based in Moscow. His work is based around media arts including sound and robotics.

2ch is an interactive instrument of communication between 2 people using brainwaves. The brainwaves are measured using the headset, which is an EEG (electroencephalogram) reader. It is a sensor that is used to measure electricity in our brains. Our brain cells communicate via electrical impulses and are active all the time, even when asleep.
The recorded electrical activities will be translated into sound, motion and video images.
The 2 users connected to the machine are supposed to synchronize their minds, guided by pitch, mechanical motion and visualization.

The point of modern day computer interfaces is to connect our brains to the system/computer interface. An example is a mouse and a keyboard that we can use to translate our thoughts into data that can be seen or heard. The surface acts as a bridge for us to connect with other people.
This project, however, works as a brain to brain interface, which skips the step of having this bridge by allowing the EEG headset to “read” the data (thoughts) in our minds directly and outputting them to the other user.
I feel that that communication in this sense becomes more raw and pure, because translation in any form can never be 100% accurate. Comparing to us using an interface and telling it what we are thinking and letting the interface read our minds directly, the latter will probably have a lower loss in translation.
In vtol’s words himself, “the machine is not the end point of your thoughts, but the mediator to another person”.
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References
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/ez53d7/cybernetic-device-turns-brainwaves-into-telepathic-art
https://www.fastcompany.com/3063203/this-pyramid-sculpture-is-an-interface-for-brain-to-brain-communication
Pictures: http://vtol.cc/filter/works/2ch