Solaris turns the abstract thought of its viewer into a visual representation of their brainwaves. Photo: Dmitry Morozov
Russian artist Dmitry Morozov turns neural activity into art. He’s used brainwaves to control robotic musical instruments and harnessed psychic powers to stage performance art. His latest creation, called Solaris , works like a mood ring, moves like a lava lamp, and looks like The Matrix while making its observer feel like a Delphic Oracle.
Morozov outfits observers with a $499 electroencephalography headset and places them in front of a curvy, chrome tank filled with a glowing, UV-sensitive liquid. He instructs viewers to communicate with the inert object, a seemingly bizarre request, but the headset picks up the resulting brainwaves and activates a powerful magnet hidden under the placid pool’s surface. Magnetic pulses linked to the viewer’s brainwave then stimulate an inky ferrofluid. The splotch of black ooze reacts in turn, roiling in response to stressful thoughts and smoothing as the observer calms down.
Over time, some viewers begin to form a dialog with the murky blemish, controlling its behavior with neural activity. Experts can will the beating blot around the surface, telepathically force it to submerge and reemerge, and otherwise engage it through silent meditation.
Solaris is a sculpture that translates neural activity into visual art. Dmitry Morozov
Solaris is a sculpture that translates neural activity into visual art.
A magnet under a pool of fluorescent liquid agitates a metallic ferrofluid creating patterns based on the viewer's brainwaves. Dmitry Morozov
A magnet under a pool of fluorescent liquid agitates a metallic ferrofluid creating patterns based on the viewer's brainwaves.
Moods create characteristic visual patterns—calm minds create smooth shapes while stress translates into hectic forms. Dmitry Morozov
Moods create characteristic visual patterns—calm minds create smooth shapes while stress translates into hectic forms.
Dmitry Morozov
The project is named after a sci-fi novel called Solaris which is centered on a crew of astronauts orbiting a planet-sized organism that lives under an globe-circling ocean and communicates psychically. Dmitry Morozov
In the novel, the planet tortures the astronauts with horrific psychic visions. Thankfully, this sculpture is less antagonistic. Dmitry Morozov
In the novel, the planet tortures the astronauts with horrific psychic visions. Thankfully, this sculpture is less antagonistic.
“Since I was programming all the algorithms and spent hours and hours with it I got really deep visual to brain to EEG feedback,” says Morozov. “I could move and change the image any way I wanted just by changing my cognitive activity, mood, and concentration.”
Sci-fi Inspiration
The project is called Solaris, after a sci-fi novel of the same name centered on a crew of astronauts orbiting a planet-sized organism that lives under an globe-circling ocean. The astronauts attempt to probe the planet, but their crude techniques antagonize the unknowable creature who retaliates by subjecting the crew to horrific psychic experiences, like reliving the suicide of a long-lost lover.
The story is a deeply philosophical exploration of the limits of human communication. Morozov, along with collaborators Julia Borovaya and Eduard Rakhmanov, wanted to explore this intellectual abstraction in a more intimate, interactive, and benign experience. “We decided to combine this magical idea of liquid ‘screen-ocean’ and machine that can read ‘minds.’” The result it a “mirror” that turns electrical pulses from the viewers frontal lobe into a visual fingerprint of sorts.
Each viewer reacts differently, but most are eventually able to form a bond with the blotch. Morozov has noted that various moods and personality types tend to manifest similarly across subjects. “Different emotions and activities have similar patterns in similar states, of course, it’s a bit different by different participant.”
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