Jack Tuttle Snell-Ryan

Invited by 2016 Portland Biennial curator Michael Grabner to perform Meng with collaborator Chi Wang.

Pre recorded readings and sound samples are used for this live synthesis performance. During the performance the performers are playing their voices recorded in both Chinese and English while using a series of recorded sounds, synthesized sounds, and combinations of spectrum content at different transpositions of beta and theta frequencies. This sound performance and design process involved real-time control and brainwave entrainment to activate dream states fused with states of high functioning awareness.

Sound and trance theory were used to broadcast audio frequency arrangements opening channels of cognitive mindfulness in the audience. Compositions begin by cross fading beta frequencies and theta frequencies; this collision propagates an audio moiré pattern. Beta frequencies are those generated during normal waking hours in which you are active and alert having a frequency of 14-28 cycles per second. Theta waves are often achieved during dreams or periods of deep relaxation. The audio moiré ideally creates an otoacoustic effect on the audience tuning the audience as they move through the biennial’s opening night.

Ayn Rand Lamp uses an old T.V. interview as source material and tracks Ayn’s eyes as she navigates complex ideas in an interview. Her dramatic eye movements are self-stimulating her brain hemispheres, a technique called bi-lateral stimulation. By panning her eyes back and forth she is unknowingly using this technique to synthesize her brain hemisphere's memory and logic functions connecting complex ideas and accessing enormous amount of information.The lamp bulbs blink back and forth charting Ayn’s sinister gaze and darting eye movements from left to right. Simultaneously the blinking lamp is likewise bi-laterally stimulating observers present in the room. Her voice, muted thru the monitor's speakers, is alternatively functioning as the physical mechanism that turns the light bulbs on and off - a voltage control. The bulbs fluctuate with the intensity of her vocal inflections.

Mechanical and manual drawing on paper. White out, pencil, Zerox transfer, acrylic ink, highlight pen.