Author: Danielle

Mind Melody”

A brain art performance of dance, painting, and geometry

 “Mind Melody” fuses art and technology to explore brainwaves as inspiration for visual art, music, and movement.

Description

Audiences experience the connection of science, mathematics, and art during “Mind Melody”. This dance, music, visual art, and science performance utilizes EEG brainwave music technology to expose the rhythms of the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind.

 Wearing an EEG headset, Francesco Fedele, Ph.D., will solve geometric and physics equations before the audience, using conscious thought. The sound of his mathematical reasoning will convey his Alpha, Beta and Gamma brainwaves which deliver conscious thinking. Visual artist Rachel Grant will start with primed blank canvas, reacting to the music of Dr. Fedele’s brainwaves to create large scale abstract paintings, tapping into the unconscious mind. Her EEG headset will translate the sounds of her Delta and Theta brainwaves, active during the brain’s dream state. Through the use of music technology coding, the two sets of differing brainwaves will create a melody that dancer Bella Dorado will react and respond to through movement. The performance will conclude with a solo dance performance with Bella wearing an EEG headset, in return creating music with her conscious and unconscious brainwaves. The finale represents the subconscious mind that connects consciousness with unconsciousness.

 The pattern of the brainwaves will be visible to the audience during the performance via a live projection of the EEG headset transmissions. In the beginning the space will feel blank, empty and quiet. During the performance, the space will be alive with brainwave music, abstract painted color, the marks of large-scale mathematical equations, and dance movement.

This performance is held in conjunction with Science.Art.Wonder, which matches artists and researchers to create art based on and inspired by scientific research. Each year, Science.Art.Wonder exhibits the art at various locations, including at the Atlanta Science Festival. 

Artistic Team

Bella Dorado is a writer and performer based in Atlanta, GA. Her work has been funded by grants from The Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and IDEA Capitol, and she was awarded Atlanta’s Emerging Artist of the Year in 2018. During this time, she worked primarily in the mediums of dance and performance art with a particular interest in durational performance installations in public spaces driven by narrative, mythmaking, and world-building. In 2018 she produced, directed and performed in Ni Aquí Ni Allá, a multimedia exhibition exploring the works of Atlanta’s Latinx identifying artists. In 2017, commissioned by the High Museum, she created FAEST, a dance work inspired by traditional faery tales of danger and disappearance. Out of this live performance, a dance film by the same name was born later that year. Bella has had the pleasure of several artistic collaborations with artist Anicka Austin including The Nylon Tights are Pink (2018) and Biophilia in Blue Tights (2019). 

Originally from Southern Italy, Francesco Fedele, Ph.D., has been an Atlanta resident for 10 years. He started practicing art in 2016 during a two-year recovery from an injury as a form of self- learned art therapy. This experience transformed Francesco and gave him a new outlet of self- expression that he has pursued ever since. In 2020 Francesco collaborated with DanceCanvas choreographer Thulani Vereen to create “GLITCH: Escaping Plato’s cave”, a dance performance and film which explores the universality of human vulnerability and strength inspired by Plato’s allegory. The film was screened in 2021 at ‘SOAR’ Presented with BronzeLens Film Festival, Synchronicity Theatre. Francesco is a practicing fine artist and member of the Atlanta Artist Center. He is committed to exposing Atlanta’s community to innovative ideas combining art, science and technology.

An Atlanta native, Rachel Grant has a commitment to serve her community as a fine artist, art educator, and occasional curator. She was recently had a 2021 solo exhibition “Natural Engagement: Where Earth Meets Sky” at the University of Georgia. Rachel is known for her sweeping oil paintings that depict the natural environment and explore the ephemerality of clouds. She received a bachelor’s degree in Art with a Psychology minor from Auburn University and is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design [SCAD] earning an M.F.A. in Painting and M.A. in Arts Administration. Rachel has exhibited throughout the United States, in France and completed a residency at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in New York City. A former resident of the Goat Farm Arts Center, Rachel often brings her painting practice out of the studio and into public spaces where she engages with community members and shares her passion for plein air artmaking. She has performed live painting as an “Art on the Atlanta Beltline” artist, for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and for Atlanta Streets Alive’s “Streets Alive Westside” event.

Mike Winters, Ph.D., is a designer, teacher and researcher specializing in audio and music technologies. He conducts research and develop technologies that support auditory experiences and interactions with information (“instruments”). His goal is to promote core human abilities like learning, performance and social connection through sound. he has experience conducting research in behavioral psychology and neurophysiology at the frontiers of audio interaction design (AUX) for mobile brain/body interfaces (MoBI), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR).