Consciousness as a property of Matter
a visualization from Brainwave to Sterling Silver.
Jennifer Hall: Artist
Epileptiforms -- a term used by medical polysomnograpers to describe the spiking that occurs within brain waveforms. The epileptiforms I have focused on are ones that are found during REM sleep -- a 90 minute segment of deep sleep that occurs a number of times each night. These spikes appear to take place in my own brain where a more common dream baseline would usually be recorded. The electro-chemisty of "dream state" to "seizure state" is particularly rich terrain for me because it speaks to the shifting and expansive potential of what we understand as mind.
Epileptiform : 5 Rem is a sample from about 5 seconds of REM spikes. The data was grabbed during sleep, translated to a 2D vector graphic, slightly extruded and bent by 3d Nurbs software. The object begins at the electrical baseline of the first wave spike and then ends at the same baseline of the last wave spike. It is considered one cycle, or a single epileptic event.
2D vector from 5 seconds of REM data.
3D vector slighly extruded and rotated.
Certainly the type of electrochemical mapping found within the Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) experience is not new to the mammalian brain. Like many forms of new diagnostic technology, a definitive diagnosis exists only because we can observe it by electronic monitors. This places diagnosis less on how a person looks or acts and more on the electrical occurrence itself, hence a further objectification of the subjective nature of experience. Here, consciousness is most certainly a property of Matter -- that the succession of subjective states that we feel as a metaphysical self -- the solidity of matter, dissolves into mathematical relationships in space and then are re-formed as object separate from the source. Now disembodied, these "thoughts" are both physical and metaphorical.
3D vector wrapped from start to end to make a crown.
Crown rotated.
The origin of consciousness and its place in structuralism introspection's is also an important reason why I have chosen to work with my own seizures. To work with the spiking data of my own brain is to celebrate other states of consciousness that makes up the numerous natures of mentality and the paradoxical state of my physical self.
Casted 3D Print in Sterling Silver.
The artist would like to thank The Decordova Museum and the Rappaport family of Boston.
Additional thanks to:
Clinical Neurophysiology and Electroencephalography Department, Beth Isreal Hospital, Boston.
