Action Potential:Interact
Torino:Margolis is a performance art team that crosses physical and psychological barriers, using invasive electronics and biomedical tools. They explore the idea that the self is transient, elusive, and modular by playing with the notions of control and free will. Their extraction of physiological processes concretizes these concepts and presents them as questions to the viewer -- not to illustrate the mechanism, but to explore the human experience. Please visit www.torinomargolis.com.
(Torino:Margolis are 2009-2011 Interaction Art Incubator Fellows at Analogous Projects. For more information about Analogous and current Analogous projects, visit http://AnalogousProjects.org.)
By hacking electromyography (EMG), a method of sensing electrical potentials generated by muscle contraction, Torino:Margolis illustrate the physiological and sonic difference between voluntary and involuntary movement: Six portable EMGs capture a performer’s actions and send the resulting signals to DIY hardware for sound-generation. The audience will be invited to participate in the performance by physically manipulating the performer, such that the physiological difference between voluntary and involuntary movement is illustrated through sound and silence. In this way, Action Potential gives voice to human free will.
(In past performances, Action Potential utilized open source software and hardware -- such as Pure Data, Xbee, and Arduino -- to capture and wirelessly transmit the neuronal impulses and transform them into sound. For the Bent Festival, the signal-processing and sound-generation will instead be performed by handmade and bent hardware.)
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