Artistic vs. Scientific Orientation

How do you balance the artistic and scientific elements in your work? Do you feel more comfortable with one than the other?

In my personal projects, I tend to take a more surreal and imaginative approach, rather than prioritize scientific specifications. However, when I decided to create a digital artwork for part of my undergraduate creative thesis, I made sure to focus on clearly defining structures in space, although there was a more surreal/representative interpretation for some aspects of the illustration. As time has gone on, I have felt more drawn to the art/interpretive side of projects.

Impact and Aspirations

Where would you like to see the greatest impact of your work? What specific outcomes or changes are you hoping to achieve through your projects in academia, industry or public?

As I am most passionate about the art and bioethics aspects, I want to widely and effectively communicate the philosophical and ethical considerations of neuroscience-related technologies through my unique style of art and popular format storytelling (e.g. webcomics or illustrated novels). In other words, this means that my work will primarily be communicated with the public with the goal of promoting widespread awareness via increasing viewership of my stories.

Initial Motivation for Biofeedback Art

When did you start exploring the intersection of biological data and artistic expression? What sparked your interest in this field?

My first interest in brain-computer interfaces arose in middle school, around the same time I watched my first documentary about consciousness, sparking an interest there. I have also been interested in the intersection of science and art since childhood, and more recently, I have fostered my interest by focusing specifically on the development of my fictional consciousness-uploading technology in some of my visual art, completing an undergraduate creative thesis on microtubules and neural electrical signalling, and writing an abstract on EEG signals and decision-making during my later studies. I also started learning about the growing field of neuroaesthetics during my art-science-tech journey and became fascinated with its concept.

I actually found out about this growing biofeedback network via the ASU-Leonardo art-science-tech initiative, which I became familiar with during my time as a leader of a STEAM (STEM with art) organization during my undergraduate years at Arizona State University/ASU. I thought this network would be a great way to find more people interested in the same or at least similar topics.

Tools & Methods

Could you share information about specific hardware or software tools or methods that are integral to your work?

At the moment, I primarily create 2D digital visual art and am exploring mixed digital media and elements of graphic design. Currently, I use the MediBang Paint program and work on both my iPad and laptop. I like to explore Unsplash for photography stock materials and FontSpace and dafont for fonts.

Final Thoughts

Do you have any closing thoughts or messages for the BARN community and newcomers? Perhaps a personal story or anecdote related to your work that you’d like to share?

I would be happy to simply discuss any topics or potentially be a visual artist on a (small) biofeedback project!