Archive of Author | Luciana Haill

About Luciana Haill

Luciana Haill is a contemporary Surrealist working with neuro-technologies and her recent practice has focused on artist Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine, Entoptic visuals and the phenomena ‘Flicker’. She has developed this into a series of performances and installations involving the realtime monitoring and sonification of the participants own brainwaves using techniques from hypnosis and meditation, she is considered a pioneering artist in her field. The ‘Phrontesterion’ (EEG & Dreamachine) references the notion of ‘The Visionary’ and was shown internationally in venues including The Royal Academy, The Waag Society in Amsterdam, Kinetica Art fair London and KIBLA in Slovenia. https://lucianahaill.wordpress.com/

Luciana Haill is a contemporary Surrealist working with neuro-technologies and her recent practice has focused on artist Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine, Entoptic visuals and the phenomena ‘Flicker’. She has developed this into a series of performances and installations involving the realtime monitoring and sonification of the participants own brainwaves using techniques from hypnosis and meditation, she is considered a pioneering artist in her field. The ‘Phrontesterion’ (EEG & Dreamachine) references the notion of ‘The Visionary’ and was shown internationally in venues including The Royal Academy, The Waag Society in Amsterdam, Kinetica Art fair London and KIBLA in Slovenia.

Luciana experienced viral meningitis as a teenager which led to a fascination with the brain. She has been using brainwave recording technologies since 1994, whilst studying for the first ever degree in Interactive Art led by Roy Ascott. Haill’s art emanates from hypnogogic reverie, entrainment (neurofeedback) and exploration of liminal states such as Lucid Dreaming. Her work researches pioneers in Neuroscience & Cybernetics whilst simultaneously exploring interconnections with parallel trends from Surrealism with ‘The Beats’, expressed in a convergence with neuro-technologies, digital media, performance, sound and her drawings.

Her installations take the form of sensory environments that enable participants to access new ways of experiencing and perceiving. These works often involve the realtime monitoring of the participants own brainwaves using techniques from neuroscience, hypnosis and meditation, to control and create interactive experiences using sound and video. Her participatory installations and performances have also taken place internationally as mentioned above, and also including : The October Gallery London, CENART in Mexico City DF,  The Royal Institute, ICT & Art Connect in Lithuania and EU Parliament in Brussels, ‘Lates’ in The Science museum, FACT in Liverpool, The Sage Gateshead, iMal Gallery in Brussels, The Secret Garden Party Oxford, The Frequency Arts festival in Lincoln and KIBLA festival in Slovenia.

https://lucianahaill.wordpress.com/

Articles with Luciana Haill

Ecstasis

Fine artist Luciana Haill works with stroboscopic lighting & brainwaves (EEG signal) exploring consciousness & expressing the results through digital media, performance, sound & drawings.
Her artworks focus on liminal states of consciousness, sleep – more specifically the discrete states of Lucid Dreaming (the awareness within a dream & the ability to take control) & ‘Hypnagogia’ which is an inspirational state more commonly experienced at the onset of sleep & day-dreaming. She investigates the neural correlates & reveals these to the audience as changes in textured soundscapes & data visualisations. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Brighton University for the Digital Media Art MA.

Flickering Phrontisterion

In this interactive, participatory artwork the Brainwaves of participants are monitored whilst experiencing a Dream Machine, invoking the phenomena Flicker via neurofeedback. Emergent sonic guides and voices recede, new ideas come to the fore. The resulting Hypnagogic & Hypnopompic brainwaves are fed-back to the participant, and change the sonification. In a secluded space, eyes closed, reclined in an air-pumped Dentist chair, they float back down, where time disappeared – experiencing Reverie, increased Theta waves. Feedback has shown increased relaxation, refreshed creativity and non linear thinking.

Revelations by Flicker, Dreamachines and Electroencephalographic signals in art

How did ordinary tools in the Neurophysiology department become means for spiritual enlightenment ?

The combination of brainwave (EEG) monitoring by the early adopters with stroboscopes induced side-effects in many of the clinical experimentees in neurophysiological research, hallucinations that were named ‘Flicker.’ Patient’s experiences described increasingly bright, complex patterns of colour behind their closed eyelids. Soon Cyberneticians, psychologists and artists were spontaneously informing this interdisciplinary exchange, during a time of pioneering chemistry, new artistic styles and by their implementation of new tools for experiencing Art. I will describe how artists’ work, including my own, is harnessing the EEG signal, bridging various methods and arousing questions in art and human experience.