HISTORY.
Alpha Wave Experience, a reinvention of the Dream Machine, this multisensory artwork lies at the intersection of contemporary art, musical composition, and sound environment. Seeing it is to explore and expand our experience of consciousness.
DREAM MACHINE, CREATE BY BRYON GYSIN.
“In 2014, I was looking for visuals for the Apollonia’s shows and I discovered the Dreamachine, created by Bryon Gysin. End of the 50’s, while crossing a forest in a bus, eyes closed, he started to have some hallucinations. Talking with Ian Summerville, they figured out that the brain generate a frequency called Alpha Wave when you fell asleep/meditate.
https://www.alphawaveexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/DAN_CUT.mp4
They tried to re-create the frequency from a machine: a cylinder based on a turntable with a rotation of 78 rpm, and with a light bulb, the light going threw some patterns. Watching the machine with closed eyes brings you into another state of mind. I totally fell in love with the idea. I built my own one, to experiment it, but we didn’t have the time to go further for our shows. I’ve always been attracted by art (my father has a gallery in Paris (Sobering gallery).
When I moved to Lisbon, I had the chance to build my studio in a gallery called Boa Lab.
Together with Tolga Fidan, we started collabs with artists to make sound designs of their pieces of art.
It was the moment to explore deeper my passion for ambient music. Suddenly, in March, the Covid changed our lives. We felt totally lost, without the possibility of meeting, of dancing, of having fun together, and the Dreamachine came back into my mind. We needed something to escape. That’s what the Alpha Wave Experience is about: stepping back, close your eyes, and see in your inside. Sober. I worked with the engineer Anine Kirsten on my own vision of the Dreamachine.
We worked hard all summer to manage to recreate the Alpha Wave. And we did! We also noticed that the music drives you to different places. Music is driving the journey. The experience is an introspection, seeing different shapes and colors. Each one will have his own trip, but we all have been taken to a meditative state of mind.” – DAN GHENACIA
WAVES
HOW DOES IT WORK ?
The experiment is done with closed eyes, we receive Alpha waves induced by the machine (usually the brain generates these waves itself at the time of sleep, dream or meditation)
The powerful strobe effect stimulates the optic nerve, although the eyes are closed, and produces psychedelic «visions» (colors and geometric shapes appear and follow each other), put in a meditative and relaxing state.
The inner journey is also guided by music (Songs created by Dan Ghenacia and Tolga Fidan especially for the Experience).
The experience can also already start entering the room with mapping or proections.
Benefits of the machine are as follows:
• reduction of stress & anxiety
• help with addiction withdrawl
• relaxation, meditation
• decreased migraines and insomnia
• creativity, visualization
• easy memory
• increased awareness
