Videos Above: Numeric Variations – Tania Fraga details the process of the dance and technical considerations exploring neural connections specific to MindFluctuations– Video: 01:50 min (top) and 08:10 min (bottom).

Research: “Experimental art with brain controlled interface” research by Tania Fraga, Donizetti Louro, and Mauro C. Pichiliani, Instituto de Matematica e Arte de São Paulo, and presentation by Withers and Fraga at Tacit Engagement in the Digital Age – CRASSH, June 26/27, 2019, #16 “Art: Artis Intelligentia: Imagine the Real,” Porto, Portugal, are available in Maida Withers Archive under  MindFluctuations.  Tania Fraga’s “MindFluctuations: Poetic, Aesthetic and Technical Considerations of a Dance Spectacle Exploring Neural Connections,” TecnoLogicas,  Vol. 21, No. 41, pp.81-102 Enero-abril de 2018.”

(2014) – February (6 to 14 ?) MindFluctuations Research Residency: Instituto de Matematica e Arte (IMA) – São Paulo, Brazil
Participants: Tania Fraga, Mauro Pichiliani, Donizetti Louro, Pedro Garci and others at the Institute of Mathematics and Art (Brazil), with Maida Withers (USA), and with Mirtes Calheiros and Ederson Lopez, dancers (Brazil).

Residency:  São Paulo, Brazil
(1) process of capturing emotional states from Emotive Neuro Helmet
(2) computer interface – 3D animation impacted autonomously in the computer
(3) projection of the animation, creating an immersive performance environment on stage

(1) Above:  Maida Withers – origin of emotional states gathered by Emotive Neuro Helmet

(2) Above:  Computer verifies the Emotive connection to the wearer’s skull

3.  Above: Data on the computer – what is projected into the performance space

Below:
MindFluctuations Program – Eleven projected “moving worlds” by Tania Fraga
 
I.   The Egg / The Beginning

II.  Blackness / Underworld

III.  Obcess / Flocks of Animals and Prey

IV.  She / Turned Away

V.  Mathematical Brain / Is Anyone Out There?

(Searching for VI. virtual world image – I believe this is the violin scene – I cannot locate an image to use here)
VI.  Civilization / Grip-Boundaries 

VII.  Brain that Creates Art / Offering 

VIII.  Brain – Maker of Things / Monster Within (Man)

IX. Collaboration / Virtue Exposed

X.  Whiteness / Transcendency 

XI.  Panspermia / Seeding the Universe with Life

For more information please read online: Tania Fraga’s article of investigation on line:  MindFluctuations:  Poetic, Aesthetic and Technical Considerations of a Dance Spectacle Exploring Neural Connections. See article by Tania Fraga below.

Maida Withers and Tania Fraga: Research Residency, São Paulo, Brazil

MindFluctuations:  POETICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF A DANCE SPECTACLE EXPLORING NEURAL CONNECTIONS – Institute of Mathematics and Art,   São Paulo, Brazil.  Tania Fraga

“There is a lot of fear that humanity will lose control and autonomy in this era of humans and computers.  This is a possibility.  Another is the development of symbiotic systems among man and machines.  As an artist I have a visceral desire to find ways to research symbiotic processes among computers and humans exploring modes of actions between humans and machines.  The potential of the computers being explored to expand human aspects.  Human sensitivities being utilized to affect machine processes.  In discussing the spectacle MindFluctuations we are looking for ways to achieve a catalyst effect over such ideas through the set up of symbiotic systems in order to understand what Roy Ascott defines as the confluence of dry computational systems with wet biological ones.

For MindFluctuations we looked for answers to the following questions:
What is necessary to develop in order to perform interactive computer art with fullness and strength? How can we do it?
How to express something, so that what is being done brings the audience to feel and sense poetically that situation?  How to maximize expression, aesthetic and poetic qualities in order to create something meaningful, using data from sets of neurons into works of art?
How to articulate what is done so that the computer technology works and introduces itself without hiding and disrupting the poetic and aesthetic goals of the work.
How the biological and electronic brains may work together?

It is desirable to point to the marked differences between working with videos in databases and live interaction happening in real time in virtual reality set ups.  Snapshots and videos of the scenarios are nothing more than glimpses showing moments of an interaction that was captured, frozen in a linear timeline.  The computer artworks addressed here are immanently different of a video, since what it is presenting are processes in its becoming.  In its coming into being. The scenarios are micro universes that allow real time variations of many autonomous processes that follow a set of rules but that manifest themselves in singular modes at each presentation.  The same ‘seed’ is presented at various times and creates a result which is singular.  This result carries the potential to never happen again in the same way: they are processes that are a visual and audible representation of a fluid mathematical universe processes that are a visual and audible representation of a fluid mathematical universe.”  Tania Fraga, São Paulo, Brazil”

Withers activities following the Brazil research residency:
Maida travelled with with Ederson and Mirtes (Cia Artes Sãos do Corpo) to São Carlos, Brazil, a university city about 2 hours from São Paulo,  the city where colleagues Cia Artes Sãos were performing.  Maida Withers Dance Construction Company previously performed in a festival in São Carlos:  Dance of the Auroras – Fire in the Sky, stage work, and. also, presented the documentary film on the science and art of Dance of the Auroras.

Withers travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina  to present six original dance film shorts, a public event sponsored by Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).  During that time, Maida became acquainted with many artists and others working with technology.  There was an amazing intensity about their interest in dance and interactive technology.  Withers collaborated with Objeto-a, a performance in the gallery of Lujan Oulton devoted to art and technology in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Of special interest was a”live” interview videotaped and projected back into the the interview arena through a process where the dance footage was interfaced with the “Isadora” video program by Maximiliano Wille, musician and “Isadora” expert : (https://vimeo.com/554723257)

What the press is saying

"The main question is to inquire about the related possibilities to intertwine human affective states with computer autonomous processes." Lauris Brazil

"La presencia de Maida es un verdadero acontecimiento para nuestra escena dancística local, ya que se trata de una de las investigadoras más osadas e interesantes del mundo en la intersección entre movimiento, cuerpo y tecnología." María José Lavandera

"En su visita a la Argentina, Maida Withers directora de Dance Construction Company, realizó una entrevista perfomática con el colectivo artístico A.Mo.Ver y Objeto à." Melina Masnatta