January/February 2001

Paras Kaul

“Brainwave Chick” Makes Music with Her Mind By Emily Yaghmour At her desk in Mason Hall, Paras Kaul is the coordinator of Electronic Publications in the University Relations office, but when she straps on her electrode-studded headband and steps out in front of an audience, she becomes the Brainwave Chick. Kaul’s interest in the power of the mind has been lifelong. Her father, a broadcaster in television and radio, was a skilled hypnotist, she says, and he frequently hypnotized her when she was a child. In a state of hypnosis, Kaul explains, one is able to relax and think with a much clearer mind. Her father died suddenly when she was only 14, leaving her not only without a father but also unable to return to that mental state he had helped her experience. In 1992, Kaul purchased a computer system that she now uses to help her revisit that state of mind to which her father introduced her. The system, the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer (IBVA), allows people to monitor their brain wave frequencies. The IBVA system includes a headband with three embedded electrodes that detect brain wave activity and a transmitter that attaches to the headband and sends brain signals to a small receiver. The receiver connects to a computer, which, when equipped with the system’s software, processes the brain wave frequencies and amplitudes as a graph on the computer screen. The graph is broken into segments, each of which has a specific frequency range. While awake, people generally stay in the beta range, says Kaul. In this range, brain wave frequencies are relatively high, reflecting a more agitated state, she explains. In the alpha or theta range, brain wave frequencies are lower, reflecting a calmer state of mind. While she admits that the computer system and the science on which it is based have not been embraced by mainstream science, Kaul has found the system to be a powerful tool in helping her relax and move swiftly into a focused mental state. She believes that using the system helps her develop greater control over her mind. “And the more you use it,” she says, “the more mental states you are able to switch between.” But, for Kaul, the system is much more than a self-development tool; it is also an artistic medium. With the appropriate hardware, the system can convert brain wave frequencies into digital sound signals. She used this feature in a series of performances titled “That Brainwave Chick,” which she and music composer and professor Mark Applebaum, who now teaches at Stanford University, gave at various locations, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, in the late 1990s. In each performance, the computer was connected to nontraditional musical instruments, and Kaul, wearing the headband, would sit quietly before the audience, allowing her brain waves to be processed through the instruments. At times, the sounds came in steady, ominous tones from the lower register of the musical scale. At other times, her brain wave frequencies produced light trills from the upper register. She varied the sound by moving between states of mind. Applebaum would then respond to these sounds with instruments he had designed. Because music produces an emotional response in the listener, Kaul’s mind then responded to Applebaum’s music, creating a musical feedback loop between them. Their performance, she explains, was a kind of nonverbal communication. “It felt like he was inside my mind.” For the audience, their music blended to create a nontraditional, at times discordant, sound. After taking a couple of graduate courses in music composition from Applebaum, Kaul began to experiment with improvisation herself. Hooked up to the IBVA system, she would improvise on her digital keyboard in response to the notes produced by her brain waves. She eventually produced a CD and music video called Streaming Consciousness, which has been featured by the Sonic Circuits International Festival of Electronic Music and Art. (See www.soniccircuits.com for more information.) She plans to give her first solo performance at a Beyond Cyberspace Conference in March at the San Jose (California) Convention Center. She also will perform at a Sonic Circuits VIII event in Washington, D.C., later this year. While Kaul enjoys the creative outlet her music provides, she also enjoys knowing that she is raising the awareness of others that they can program their state of mind. According to Kaul, the more relaxed alpha and theta states of mind are more conducive to clear thinking and problem solving, but our culture exists in the more agitated beta state. “If we could convince our public to live more in an alpha state,” she says, “we would have a better problem-solving community.”