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What was John Cage 'thinking' when he performed his silent composition,
4'33", in 1948? Was he vibrating to an inner mantra; baking bread with his imagination;
laying notional bricks for a dream house; reflecting on the qualia of mushrooms;
none of these things; nothing?
These are the inspirational and playful thoughts behind the 'Thought Conductor'.
The process of preparing this work has involved accessing the creative
processes of a number of composers in Oslo and London. We achieved this by making brainwave (eeg) recordings of the composers as they made notations of spontaneous mental music in their own style. We then correlated the notation with the concurrent brainwave recordings. This mass of interactions has been made into a database, forming a wealth of musical
output possibility residing on a hard-drive.
A creative engine.
An experimental instrument waiting to be 'piloted' by the thoughts of
selected members of the Stavanger public. During the performance, the specially constructed relational-database software ("The DreamEngine"), will analyse the brainwave output of the 'pilot', making matches with the contents of the database, and consequently sending out
musical notation to the members of a string quartet to be sight-read and played in
real time.
Will aimless, mundane, mental wanderings produce something sublime;
philosophical headwork a relentless coda of brutal cacophony? The other way
round? Is it all just down to chance?
Let the 'pilot' guide us..........
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