Event Blog 3 - Nina Sobell: EEG + Intimate Connections + Art

When I saw Nina Sobell having a difficult time figuring out the Zoom settings on her computer during the presentation about computer-transmitted communications, it is hard to imagine that this woman is one of the pioneers to incorporate computers and other electronic technologies into art in the twentieth century. Nina Sobell is among the earliest generation of artists who surfed in the second wave of technological advancement and the industrial revolution. Her art allows us to peek into people’s minds when they were surrounded by novel inventions and rapidly evolving technologies. In her work Unseen Unheard, Nina Sobel presented a bizarre combination of visual and audio effects. She claims that it is a specialized sequence of the spatial trajectories of the sky and its hybrid forms reuniting with the human (Sobell). This sounds to me like some kind of wavelets or ripples that exist in an alternative space.

 

 

(Video from Sobell.)

In mathematics, there are many such alternates parallel to the spatial domain. For example, the Fourier transform converts spatial objects into their alternative forms in the frequency domain. This phenomenon is illustrated in the following video by 3Blue1Brown.

 

 

(Video from Sanderson.)

Fourier transform is widely used in mathematics, physics, and engineering because it can help us discover many hidden features of the original spatial object. The most practical application of Fourier transform that I know of is in digital image processing. Manipulating certain parameters in the frequency domain enables us to restore degraded and blurred pictures and recover the hidden information. The following picture shows how an image corrupted by noise and blurred by the motion of the car is restored using the Wiener filter, a mathematical manipulation in the frequency domain (Wikipedia). In the original picture, we cannot see the license plate number because the car is moving fast and the shutter of the camera is too slow and hence leaving a dragging mark on the photo. The number is so illegible that no one can recognize it with naked eyes. In such cases, the frequency domain becomes really handy and reveals information that we would not normally notice in the spatial world. 

Motion-blurred-number-plates-left-and-after-deblurring-using-wiener-filter-algorithm.jpg

(Image from Ratnarajah.)

From a mathematician's point of view, Nina Sobell’s art takes us to the frequency domain of our visual world. There, we are able to see ordinary things from a strange but intriguing angle. We can hear the color of the sky, taste the sound of birds, and see the whiff of the newly-mown lawn. I think this is also related to Sobell’s other artwork that uses brain waves as a means of communication. We talk and write in the spatial domain, i.e., the physical world in which we are subject to numerous constraints in both time and space. However, in the “frequency domain”, those limitations are cleared and no longer prevent us from communicating with others in the fullest and most potent form. In the book Brain Art: Brain-Computer Interfaces for Artistic Expression, the author introduces a computerized interface for artists to work in the digital world. We might just be at the dawn of the next reform after which we will not communicate by our current means anymore.

 

Works Cited:

Nijholt, Anton. Brain Art: Brain-Computer Interfaces for Artistic Expression. SPRINGER NATURE, 2020.

Ratnarajah, Anton Jeran, and Sahani Goonetilleke. “11 Motion Blurred Number Plates and after Deblurring Using Wiener Filter Algorithm.” ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Motion-blurred-number-plates-left-and-after-deblurring-using-wiener-filter-algorithm_fig21_329513130.

Sanderson, Grant. “But What Is the Fourier Transform? A Visual Introduction.” 3Blue1Brown, YouTube, 26 Jan. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF58BY.

Sobell, Nina. “UNSEEN Folio.” Nnina Sobell Stills from Unseen Unheard 2020, Louffa Press, http://www.ninasobell.com/ninasobell/unseen-unheard/unseen-unheard.html.

Sobell, Nina. “Unseen Unheard March-June 2020.” Vimeo, 3 June 2022, https://vimeo.com/433801976.

Wikipedia. “Wiener Filter.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_filter. 

 

Attendance Confirmation:

FireShot Capture 106 - Google Apps for UCLA Mail - Nina Sobell Confirmation - mail.google.com_.png