DECONcert: Making Waves with Water, EEG, and Music

Abstract. We describe events in which music, water and the brain form an immersive environment for human-computer and human-computer-human collective engagement. The theme of sound wave production, re-generation and audition from water waves and brain waves is our central exploration, beginning with our DECONcerts in which participants, im-mersed in water and connected to EEG equipment, regeneratively create or affect live music by varying their alpha wave output. We explored the five states-of-matter (Classical Elements) of solid (“Earth”), liquid (“Wa-ter”), gas (“Air”), plasma (“Fire”), and quintessence (“Idea”), in the context of immersive media (e.g. when the surrounding state-of-matter was liquid). Some of these immersive environments spanned multiple countries, by way of networked connectivity. We also expanded from philosophical to therapeutic contexts by including Parkinson’s patients in our immersed environments.