Ashanti Vivia |
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There is a pulse that exists and vibrates within each and every one of us. There is a vast array of influences that trigger our minds and hearts in the everyday flow. The sensory environment around us feeds into our beings, shifting our physiological state as well as our psychological state. We live in a time when scientific research is constantly investigating these issues. In my multimedia installations, I explore ways of realizing these ideas in a more tangible form. My goal is to show the similarities between an energy that drives rhythm, and an emotion that drives movement. With the use of video and audio, this is expressed as a stream of consciousness. It is my intent to demonstrate that meditation is a state of awareness that can radically transform us and can be experienced anywhere. I strongly feel it is important to integrate spirituality into every thing we do. In a time when we are bombarded by media images of disaster, war and world suffering, it is important to seek inner calm and balance. My art is a healing tool, a spiritual synthesis, a transformative process, and a way of being. For the past eight years I have been facilitating Healing Art and Meditation workshops at the Women's Center in Cambridge, MA. As a teacher I have seen how influential meditation and visualization can be. Inspired by the experience of my students, I created various projects to teach others the importance of meditation. I have seen how shifting our state of awareness can be a powerful tool. Through these inspiring experiences I have generated ideas to create EKTA. This interactive installation is an environment to allow people to experience these subtle shifting states of consciousness in their mind and body. This has resulted in an awakening process of understanding the connection of our internal and external environment. As a multimedia artist I have explored various methods of interrelating art and technology. My experience with music and DJing have influenced my thought process about how to map sound to chakras in EKTA. As a painter who also works with animation, I see the synergistic relationship between color, sound, pattern, texture and frequency. Synesthesia--the fusion of different senses--plays an important role in this project.
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Chris Korda |
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Chris is a software system architect, object-oriented programmer, and technical writer, as well as a lyricist, jazz guitarist and pianist, electronic musician, avant-garde composer, music theorist, author, graphic designer, and dadaist. Chris co-designed, coded, and documented the control software for both the 2003 and 2005 versions of EKTA, as well as the current version. The software implements an algorithmic music generator, which responds in real time to changes in the brain wave data, as determined by statistical analysis. The 2003 version was written in C running under DOS, and was not sufficiently stable, so Chris completely rewrote the EKTA software in 2005, using C++ running on an RTOS (Real-Time Operating System), in order to maximize reliability and minimize latency. During the development of EKTA 2005, Ashanti and Chris were exploring the possibility of animated graphics that also responded to the brain wave data, so Chris developed an experimental version of what later became the Whorld geometric visualizer. Since then, Whorld has evolved into a complex open-source tool for generating real-time animation and digital art. Whorld animates sacred geometry, and distorts it according to parameters that can be adjusted manually, or automated via programmable oscillators. The result is a mesmerizing, ever-changing psychedelic composition that responds to user input. Chris has previously developed software tools for live composition of electronic music. Like EKTA and Whorld, these tools explored the boundary between art and technology, and made use of novel interfaces that were precisely adapted to the needs of the artist. Chris used these tools to create music based on hemiolas (loops of differing lengths that drift relative to each other over time). The music was discovered by the German DJ Hell in 1997, and has since been distributed internationally via International DeeJay Gigolo. Chris has also worked professionally at the forefront of software design for over 20 years, and is currently employed as a consultant by Z Corporation, designing embedded firmware for 3D printers.
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