Event 2

On May 5th, I attended and participated in Professor Vesna and Dr. Mark Cohen's project, "Octopus Brainstorming: Mind to Mind Conversation". This performance art piece was aimed to discover the connections between two people by using the Electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure their brain waves. Each participant wears a head piece that resembles an octopus and contains electrodes. Different colored lights will appear depending on the brain waves detected. The participants were meant to have a common color of light on their head pieces if they were on the same wavelength, and have a more disorganized array of colors appear if the participants were not on the same wavelength.

 

I got the chance to participate in this event and wear the EEG octopus hat, which was a very cool experience and helped me better understand the performance. I noticed that when I did not fully engage and follow the directions to look into my partners eyes or hum to myself, we were not able to reach a common wavelength, however when I was fully focused and participated, we were able to. This made me realize how important the little details were and convinced me that the hats really worked.
I definitely recommend this event because I found it very interesting and enlightened me on the existence of this type of technology. I use and hear the phrase "we are not on the same wavelength" all the time, and now I can understand what that actually means. I also liked that the instructors wanted to know our feedback at the end on how to make the event more interactive and how to improve our learning experience even more.

Work Cited
"Electroencephalogram (EEG)." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 15 May 2017. <http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/electroencephalogram-eeg-21508#1>.
Keim, Brandon. "Good Connection Really Does Lead to Mind Meld." Wired. Conde Nast, 26 July 2010. Web. 15 May 2017. <https://www.wired.com/2010/07/mind-meshing/>.
Muller, Robert T. "New EEG Technology Makes for Better Brain Reading." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 15 May 2017. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-about-trauma/201409/new-eeg-technology-makes-better-brain-reading>.
"OCTOPUS BRAINSTORMING: Empathy." OCTOPUS BRAINSTORMING: Empathy | UCLA Art | Sci Center + Lab. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017. <http://artsci.ucla.edu/node/1294>.

Victoria Vesna. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2017. <http://victoriavesna.com/blog/tag/octopus-brainstorming/>.

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