Sophie Chen – Looking Outwards – 07

Melting Memories by Refik Anadol Studio

Melting Memories is a series of multi-dimensional digital artworks that explore the materiality of remembering through different ways of representing EEG data collected on the neural mechanisms of cognitive control. What viewers experience are aesthetic interpretations of motor movements inside a human brain. I was immediately drawn to the level of abstraction of the human mind that this project was able to visually achieve. The Neuroscape Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco gathers data and changes in brain wave activity which are the building blocks for the algorithms that the artists need. The team was able to use a composite design pattern to quickly iterate the project, and this way of working allowed them to explore many different complex functions while maintaining a modular graphics pipeline. I really admire the level of integration between data and visuals that this project was able to achieve.