Performing Hypo-Linguistics (document) by Lisa SoYoung Park and Minka Stoyanova
Performing Hypo-Linguistics (document), Single channel video, 11’57”, 2017
What is the future of language, of communication? Is there a possibility of language beyond language, beyond the symbolic representationalism of archaic linguistic systems? Artists Minka Stoyanova and Lisa SoYoung Park tackle these questions through the creation of a cybernetic system of non-linguistic communication. This system realizes post-semantic dialogue through the use of streaming EEG (electroencephalogram) brain data. The brain data of one artist generates an audio track, while the other generates a video track, creating a single, constantly evolving, audio-visual experience. When performed, each artist enters sensory isolation, wherein they are only able to perceive the generated content of the other. The audio and visual are then presented together, as a singular whole for the third party audience, creating a single performance from the interaction of two minds.
Originally conceived as a performance, this video document represents the cybernetic feedback loop created by the artists. Their two faces are shown in close-up with the mandala image superimposed. This mandala is the image that responds to Park’s brain waves, while the accompanying audio track responds to Stoyanova’s brain waves. Audience members are invited into the meditational experience of the oscillating nature sounds and floating mandalas while watching the micro-emotional responses of the two performers.
Minka Stoyanova, a native of New Orleans, LA, is an artist-thinker and philosopher-maker. Her internet-informed, cross-media, and often performative practice uses recursion and appropriation to investigate the construction of identity in our techno-social milieu. In addition to a number of solo exhibitions in New Orleans, Stoyanova’s work has been presented in international venues including: Xi’an Contemporary art museum (China), Cindy Lisica Gallery (Houston, TX), Clockenflap Music Festival (Hong Kong), the International Symposium of Electronic Art (Hong Kong), Transmediale (Berlin), Videoholica (Bulgaria), FutureEverything (Manchester), Biennial of Young Artists (Romania), and Voodoo Music Festival (New Orleans). Stoyanova is currently completing a PhD in Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.
Lisa SoYoung Park is a South Korean born artist, currently pursuing her doctoral research on the influences of East Asian cultural traditions on new media art practice at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Experimenting with overlapping domains of popular media, public sphere and New Media Art, she leans toward building “useful” artworks that border between art, utility and play. Park’s artworks explore issues on hybridization of cultures and its influences on human relationships, lived experiences and contemporary urban life. Her artworks and academic papers were presented in various exhibitions and conferences including International Symposium of Electronic Art (HK, 2016), Xi’an Art Museum (China), RIXC Open Fields conference (Latvia), Noise=noise (HK) and The aesthetics of (in)security workshop at York University (Canada).