commissioned by: Faster Than Sound and Aldeburgh Music

premiere: Hoffman Building, Snape Maltings U.K. 5th September   – 2010

collaborators: visuals: Loop PH music Mira Calix and Anna Meredith. Performed by members of The Aurora Orchestra,  neuroscientist: Professor Vincent Walsh

instrumentation:  string quartet, electronics,MRI Machine,

format: performance/installation/sculpture

Mira Calix was commissioned by Faster Than Sound. The residency brought together science, visual art and music to explore the connections inspired by the brain and sound. These links were  realised in a new sculptural work by design studio Loop.ph and two new works by Mira Calix and Anna Meredith which all take MRI brain scanners as their inspiration. The artists worked in close collaboration with esteemed neuroscientist Professor Vincent Walsh throughout the residency at Aldeburgh Music. . Brainwaves offers a tantalising insight into the connections between the worlds of creativity and science.

Mira Calix’s starting point is the daunting personal experience of a brain scan, which she used as inspiration for a new piece, Zipless;  for string quartet, MRI Machine and electronics. Calix also worked in collaboration with Anna Meredith on a second piece, titled Tine. The  30 minute piece works as a performance installation, with the members of the Aurora Orchestra moving  within the grid,  incorporating a visual dimension to the piece, which is inspired by the scientific principal of Small World Networks. Anna  Meredith created her own solo work, Chorale for the project.

watch  Mira Calix in discussing the process of creating Brainwaves  with  BBC News

Brainwaves is currently on tour, it has been performed in London as part of the Barbican Blaze Festival 2011, as well as the Arnolfini and De La Warr Pavilion.