Led by an “emotional conductor” and a traditional one, music and video change in time with the performers’ brain waves and heart rate. According to the work’s producer, the orchestra aims to “see what the brain can do without the body”.

The orchestra’s premiere performance closed the Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague. The project is the creation of the Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) group at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

“Only recently we have come to appreciate more the tight coupling between mind, brain and body,” Paul Verschure, head of the project, told the audience. “But we can wonder what the mind and brain would be capable of if it would be directly interfaced to the world, bypassing the body.”

The piece that the orchestra performed, Xmotion, was composed by Jonatas Manzolli, giving it an underlying structure. But it is the performers who control variations of visuals, sounds, frequencies, and volumes in the overall piece.

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