Home > Art Series > Symphonic
Thoughts
Artist's Statement
In the Symphonic Thoughts series of works, the underlying images are also previous photographic pieces that I have shown in exhibits across the United States, and internationally. Each photograph has been substantially transformed, just as the central nervous system transforms visual memories into complex and indecipherable neuronal networks and interconnections.
In April, 1980, while doing a rotation in the electroencephalogram
(EEG) laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, I asked one of the EEG technicians
to do my own EEG. I had prepared a list of artists and artistic
topics to think about as the EEG was done. She carefully recorded
on the tracing paper what I was thinking. The EEG tracings on the
current sequence of art works were taken directly from these tracings.
Although the original EEG had recorded 12 channels, with 12 lines,
for the art works I only used five lines, in keeping with the number
of lines on sheet music. The analogy with music was further amplified
by the application of musical "notes" (actually barbs from barbed
wire) onto the EEG tracings. In each art work a specific musical
piece was used for the precise placement of the barbs in keeping
with the musical score from that composer's work. < CONTINUE
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