Exquisite Corpse is a performance by HCC Music faculty and guest artists participating in the University of Houston’s Brain on Art series- a collaboration with Blaffer Arts Museum, Houston-based artists, and the U of H’s Noninvasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems Laboratory.
HCC musicians will perform variations on saxophone, bass, and drums while wearing skullcaps equipped with sensors. U of H engineering professor Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal will demonstrate the technology that allows us to understand what happens in artists’ brains through braincomputer interfaces – showing us what the brain looks like during the creative process – and review his team’s research on mobile brain-body imaging to study neuroaesthetics and creativity in public settings.
Dr. Woody Witt, HCC Professor, Music (saxophone)
Glen Ackerman, HCC Adjunct Professor, Music and Music Business (bass)
Guillermo “Memo” Reza, HCC Alumni (percussion)
Wearing skullcaps equipped with sensors, HCC faculty and UH affiliate artist Woody Witt (saxophone), HCC faculty member Glen Ackerman (bass) and drummer Guillermo “Memo” Reza will play a variation of Exquisite Corpse, a collaborative, chance-based game made famous by the Surrealists in the 1920s. The demonstration will be followed by a discussion of the musicians’ process and the goals of the research — funded by the National Science Foundation (#BCS 1533691) and led by U of H engineering professor Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal — to study connections between the brain and creativity, expression, and the perception of art. Future Your Brain on Art events will feature similar collaborations between artists in various disciplines, including the visual, performing, and literary arts. This project is an outgrowth of the Blaffer Art Museum Innovation Series, launched in Spring 2015 to foster cross-disciplinary collaborations between the arts and sciences.
