Could you share with us on what kickstarted your journey in fusing state of the art technology such as electroencephalography (EEG) sensors into your art? Who/what were your inspirations?
SY: During CB, I think a lot of technology… how technology is more important than ever in this pandemic times, how it become a part of our body, like our arm of leg, that we can’t live without it. Without technology, the whole world will come to a stand still, no more Zoom meetings , no more emails….no more internet…really can’t imagine.

Maybe I was feeling nervous and wanted calm my nerves, I thought of doing mediation. However, I was exploring ways to do mediation with an aided device rather than just the normal sitting down legs crossed. Withextra time at home, I spent time researching on mediation devices like MUSE who is essentially brain-sensor device that tracks your brainwaveswith an app that helps you improve on your mediation. I bought one online and started to use it and at the same time I did further research and came across interesting articles that feature designers and artists using EEG sensors in their works. The more I found, the more intrigue I was and thought why not merge neurotechnology with my love for ink and see what it can lead us? One artist stood out and his name is Refik Anadol from Turkey. His work is the intersection of advanced technology and contemporary art. His works are really inspiring.

How does the electroencephalography (EEG) sensors work to create your digital ink paintings?
SY: I wanted to control digital ink with human mind…to tap the energies of the most mysterious and powerful organ : the brain, to create. The development of this work involves two parts: the look development of ink and translating human brain waves as a meaningful controller for the digital ink.

Liquid ink simulation effect has traditionally been very challenging for real-time applications. A total of 100,000 particles are used for the fluid simulation. After we took care of look of the ink, next we translated the human brainwaves and convert ed them to data for the ink painting.  To read human brainwaves, we used MUSE brain-sensor device . The sensor reads input from 4 points on our head (AF7, AF8, TP9, TP10) and provided 4 continuous wave streams. To decipher the waves, we
combine d the 4 inputs and performed a discrete fourier transform to split the wave into its frequency components. We can then calculated the “Alpha” and “Beta” brain waves which represents non-arousal and arousal respectively. To create an artistic control from the waves, we have normalized the Alpha and Beta waves and collapsed them into “state of mind” value which can be used to control the digital ink paintings. The less calm state your mind is the more volatile the digital ink paintings will behave.

Workflow of Touchdesigner
The data flows from muse device via web Bluetooth. The raw data is transported to Touchdesigner via tcp (Transmission Control Protocol).  The raw data is then processed in Touchdesigner and used as control data for the simulation network for the fluid simulation. Data from simulation is passed into a opengl (Open Graphics Library) render network to create the final digital ink paintings.

Were there any challenges you faced making art using this technology? If so, how did you overcome it?
SY: Of course, as the technology is really advanced, and the software that the programmer is using is called  “Touchdesigner”. I do not understand any of the programming.  So its like going in blind and trusting the programmers fully. I became more like an art director rather than an artist. I had zero control in the final outcome of the work. We built up rapport really quickly and had long discussions of how I want the look and feel of the ink paintings. To me,  this is a collaboration between me and the programmer and like all collaborations, the final outcome will always be different from my usual work and it is exciting. Also, transposing EEG data into interesting,  aesthetically pleasing liquid ink forms was a real challenge, both technically and conceptually.

What is the message you want to put across to others with your MIND INK PAINTING MACHINE performance?
SY :I am working with new ideas using thousand year old medium, ink. I am excited by this contrast and hope that others will find this work refreshing, energetic and fun!

This project is supported by National Arts Council and part of #SGCULTUREANYWHERE #SGUNITED Singapore art Week 2021