Metal Grid cut in half, LEDs flickering at varying frequencies, Video, Volcanic Rock, EEG sensor, Cosmic Soundscape, 187cm x 187cm x 236cm
The immersive installation invites the public to explore the grid as an apparatus from which we measure and align, micro and macro, and virtual and material worlds. The work comments on how the grid has evolved from a scientific apparatus, utilized in microbiology and cosmology to a common tool that extends into virtual world-making. With the incorporation of body-data, via electrophysiological interfacing (EEG sensors), which measure brainwaves, the work asks how interpersonal and relational dynamics are affected by the embodiment of a virtual and physical grid.
Interested in understanding the implications of technologically mediated somatic practice, middleton utilizes EEG sensors to reflect on the social, cultural, economic, and ecological implications of bio-information mined through personal devices, and grid-like mentalities.
The work invites a moment of reflection on how technological integrations alter somatic experience and cultivate body-culture. In her critique of Cartesian dualist philosophy, which separates body-matter, Res Extensa, from mind-consciousness, Res Cogitans, Res Nodus asks how big data analytics, automation, and AI, are shaping sensory experience and relationality through new evolutions of the grid.