Gallery: How Art Can Bridge the Digital 'Divide'
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*Consisting of paintings, brainwave recordings fed into smart glass, and a live tree in a box, this art installation is an attempt to bridge the digital art divide -- inviting new ways to "think, see, and filter affect." The piece is called “The Tree of Pascal” by Drue Kataoka and will be exhibited as part of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.*
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*The brainwaves featured in the installation were captured from different regions of the brain through this personal electroencephalography (EEG) [brain-computer interface](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface). The EPOC headset features 14 electrodes and is made by San Francisco-based startup [Emotiv](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/12/features/mind-control?page=all), which collaborated on this project through its CEO Tan Le and also made the headset open source for developers and researchers. The company developed custom software to process the brainwave data and feed those "insights" into the art installation through their API. Image: Emotiv*
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*Brainwaves were collected from over 40 people (to date) on virtually every continent: Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America. The participating "brains" -- representing technology, academia, social service, and business -- were asked to visualize an activity important to them while wearing the headset. Their recorded brainwaves were then incorporated into the art.*
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*Inside the art installation -- encased behind a glass panel -- is a small, living tree. But the panel isn't made of ordinary glass; it's made of [Smart glass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartglass). The glass changes from transparent to opaque depending on the voltage applied to it, which is correlated to the intensity of thought and emotion from both recorded brainwaves ... and live ones. So the artwork isn't static: It collaborates with viewers real-time, changing and adapting (like neuro-plasticity in the brain) with new experiences. The more light that comes through, the more light will reach the tree -- enabling the tree to thrive.*
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*Outside the art installation -- on the top and both sides of the triangular box -- are three "Sumi-e" ink paintings ("The End of the Sky," "Conceiving the Sky," and "Top of the Sky"). Sumi-e is an ancient technique originally practiced by monks and Samurai in Japan. One of the country's most famous swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi, was also one of the greatest Sumi-e artists in history; control of hand is essential in both.*
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*In the Sumi-e technique, the process of grinding and preparing the ink before it is applied by brush on paper is very intense, laborious, and contemplative. The artist was looking at and meditating on Hubble telescope photos while doing these paintings, which aim to capture and bridge the worlds inside and outside of us.*
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*View without the smart glass (this tree is an artificial placeholder since the live one will be sourced from Switzerland due to EU agricultural restrictions). Inside the box are mirror fragments, broken and arranged by the artist as part of a "magic box" technique she developed for creating negative space and reflecting, distorting, and blending worlds. The inspiration for the tree -- and title of the entire art installation -- came from the following quote by French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal:* "Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality."
