LONDONFIELDWORKS

Photo montage: LondonFieldworks

The Thought Pavilion is a proposal resulting from a commission by The London Science Museum Art Projects 5 (SMAP5) Big Ideas, and is inspired by recent developments in brain-machine interfaces and the burgeoning role of databases across many sectors of society. Through the use of a relational database, the project proposes a model of production for plastic arts within the context of a global public artwork. The project has developed a system to automatically translate human thought processes into plastic objects - Thought Sculpture - a contemporary metaphor to decribe the intersection of mind and material culture. The project links a brainwave interface and a relational database of donated brainwaves from members of the public with manufacturing technology to produce sculptural forms as architectural building blocks. These building blocks will be cumulatively assembled into an architectural installation: The Thought Pavilion.

"The more we rely upon digitization, building on new possibilities for inputting, analysing, interpreting and outputting data, the easier it is to mistake, in the rigid order of computational representation, an aura of authority that it may not necessarily have."

Hannah Redler, curator Science Museum Art Programme.

"THE MAGIC BOX: imagine an object and it will appear"

(New Scientist, September 2000, p22)

This proposal has been developed from the artEmergent project which received support from an AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Award.