Eyes open
Steve D Smart
The Science
Electroencephalography* can be regarded as an early technical attempt to probe the most elusive of the human body’s activities - the process of thought itself. This piece is one of a series of montages called ‘Remote Sensing’ that combine images of dance with outputs of systems for sensing and recording previously invisible processes. “It seems as ordinary to use movement or the human figure to communicate complex ideas or emotions to me as it does to use words. I chose this particular image because I felt that the intensity of performer Aled Evans’ sidelong stare combined with his conspiratorial pose seemed to embody someone with something urgent to tell, something that might indeed be altogether eye-opening”. The piece takes its title from the key feature of the chart shown. Of course, when we say a person has their eyes open, we may often intend to imply much more about how or what they might be thinking.
*Electroencephalography is the process of recording electrical activity in the brain. In the chart used in this photomontage (taken from Fraser and Lawrence, 2012), the small diagram top-left shows dots indicating the position of each electrode. Time is horizontal, and the annotations indicate the different states of the subject.
The Artist
Steve Smart is a poet and visual artist who has been involved in a broad range of creative disciplines over many years, leading to collaborations with artists, performers, and scientists in fields as diverse as rehabilitation, dance, photography, film, computing, sculpture, poetry, psychology, biology, and others. Until recently Steve worked at the University of St Andrews. Recent projects there include making an online collection of films called 'Poems for Doctors', and designing 'Sea Symphonies', a Dundee Science Centre exhibition about work studying humpback whale songs. Current projects include collaboration on interactive poetry and an anthology project based in New Zealand. Connect with Steve via his website.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license