‘The God of Hell Fire’ (the creator of that infamous no.1 single in the late 60’s) Arthur Brown is making music and art with his mind, using a special electrode covered helmet that monitors his brainwaves. When colours and sounds are assigned to the movement of these waves, they are expressed on visual screens and through loudspeakers. It’s an idea 40 years in the making for Arthur, and – in a world first - he’ll be presenting a live show incorporating all of this with his band The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, at Bestival on Sept 12.
He first came up with the idea in the early 70s, when he wanted to hook The Pope up to an EEG machine and have his brainwaves play a solo with them on stage. Of course, the tech wasn’t quite there yet and as the years passed by many lost faith in the idea ever becoming a reality. It took until 2013 for this to look like a possibility, when Arthur saw an advert for a hat that would monitor brain activity. After an introduction to Neurofeedback artist Luciana Haill, and the technology’s inventor Masahiro Kahata, they began to experiment together, ultimately finding that Arthur was more capable than most of controlling the volume, tone and frequencies of his brainwave emissions.
So the compositions of this technology will be able to gradually encompass every possible way the human can experience the world, and make a new creation from it. Perhaps even eventually creating a new universe. Some people will say it is only virtual but in these times even some scientists are proposing that this whole world we live in is in fact only a holographic projection in a presence we are not yet aware of. In which case what is the distinction between real and virtual? "What is music?" then becomes a very good question indeed.
