Sonification of Amnesic Memory

The Sonification of Amnesic Memory is a multi-channel sound installation and Sensecam image work that was presented at the Amnesia Lab symposium, 23–25 September 2014 at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney and exhibited in the Amnesia Lab exhibition at UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 20 September to 8 November 2014. The sound installation uses data from an electroencephalogram (EEG) study of a woman with amnesia viewing images she has taken using SenseCam. The study was run by neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday (Westminster University) and psychologist Corinna Haenschel (City University) at the EEG Lab at City University as research-in-progress for Lesions in the Landscape: Claire and the Island of Hirta, a project led by Shona Illingworth and funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK. The EEG data was then sonified to create a multi-channel sound installation as part of a wider body of work which sets out to develop new forms of expression for and ways to depict the neurological landscape of amnesia and the sudden bursts of neural activity in the brain during Proustian moments of recollection cued by Sensecam images. Sensecam is a sensory operated camera that produces images which have been shown to activate otherwise inaccessible memory in some cases of amnesia. EEG measures the electrical activity of the brain, via electrodes applied to the scalp. Working with Charlie Fleming (University of Kent), the waveforms of neural firing output from the EEG were transformed into sound – the 32 channels corresponding to 64 electrodes placed on key parts of the scalp. A muliti-speaker array was installed in the gallery, the position of the of 32 speakers corresponding with the relative positions of the EEG electrodes, in order to re-present the EEG data and to map the real time memory construction process of someone with amnesia in spatialised audio form. The sound installation created a new possibilities for the articulation of amnesia and EEG data, opening up new avenues for research in the study of amnesia, across cognitive neuropsychology and fine art practice.