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NARRATING THE BRAIN

THROUGH NEUROFEEDBACK ART

Research Master Thesis by Nim Goede (0562882) Arts & Culture: Art Studies

University of Amsterdam, 2016. Supervisor: dr. Miriam van Rijsingen Second Reader: prof. Patricia Pisters

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Table of Contents

Introduction ... 6

Introducing the Subject ... 6

Relevance ... 10

Methodology ... 10

A History of Neurofeedback ... 11

Outline ... 13

Chapter 1 - Mutual Wave Machine: Being on the Same Wavelength ... 14

Introduction... 14

Marina Abramoviç’s Energy Dialogue ... 15

Behavioral Synchronicity ... 17

The Predictive Brain ... 18

Neural Synchronicity: From Intra- to Inter-Brain Communication ... 20

A Neurofeedback Loop ... 22

Taking the Other’s Perspective ... 24

Empathy in the Brain: The Mirror Neuron Hypothesis ... 25

Critique on the Mirror Neuron Hypothesis ... 26

Empathy in the Brain: A New Hypothesis ... 27

Emancipatory Role of Mutual Wave Machine ... 30

Conclusion ... 31

Chapter 2 - Wave UFO: An Interconnected Cosmos ... 34

Introduction... 34

Interconnectedness ... 35

Transformation ... 37

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Synthesizing Ancient Tradition with Hi-Tech ... 40

An Alien Aesthetic ... 42

Neurofeedback: An Abstract Visual Dialogue ... 43

Tuning in to the Cosmic Alpha Rhythm ... 44

Embodied Metaphors ... 47

A Jungian Perspective ... 50

A Psychoanalytical Reading of Wave UFO ... 54

Connected World... 58

Conclusion ... 59

Conclusion & Discussion ... 64

List of Illustrations ... 70

Bibliography ... 77

Websites ... 83

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Introduction

Introducing the Subject

During the past decades a hype has developed around the results brought forth by the field of neuroscience. This trend was epitomized by George Bush declaring the nineteen-nineties the ‘decade of the brain’, inaugurating a period in which the brain would come to take center stage. As a consequence, different domains of knowledge, like, for instance, the social sciences and the humanities, started re-assessing their epistemological foundations based on insights from the field of neuroscience. What resulted was a plethora of ‘neuro’-oriented disciplines, such as neuroeconomics, neuropsychoanalysis, neurotheology and neuroaesthetics, which all seek out to reveal the neural correlates of whatever behavioral or cognitive act is of interest in the respective field.1

This focus on the brain went hand in hand with novel conceptualizations of the subject as being reducible to its brain. Fernando Vidal argues that this idea of ‘being, rather than simply having, a brain’ predates the present-day interest in neuroscience and perhaps even caused it.2 In his essay Brainhood:

Anthropological Figure of Modernity (2009) he describes how this concept of the ‘cerebral subject’, as he

coined it, emerged during the midway point of the twentieth century, yet its roots can be traced all the way back to the eighteenth century to the writings of Charles Bonnet.3 Similar instantiations of this idea

can also be found in the writings of others, for instance Nikolas Rose’s concept of the ‘neurochemical self’ or neuroscientists like Michael Gazzaniga or Dick Swaab proclaiming that “we are our brains”.4

If, for arguments sake, we accept the claim that our selfhood can indeed be reduced to the inner workings of our material brain, a supposition that has been met with a fair amount of criticism, then the next question becomes: if we are our brains, then what are our brains?5 The sheer confidence with which

neuroscientists like Gazzaniga or Swaab have postulated our cerebral subjecthood suggests that

1 Vidal (2009): 22-24; Frazzetto & Anker (2009): 815.

2 It should be noted that Vidal does not imply that the concept of the cerebral subject is the only anthropological figure to be found in contemporary (Western) societies, it constitutes just one of many conceptualization of the post-structuralist subject. Different manifestations of the subject can even co-exist in one individual. See: Vidal (2009): 6.

3 Ibid. 6-14; the genealogy of the brain as self will be further explored in Vidal’s forthcoming book called Being

Brains, scheduled to be released in 2016.

4 Ibid. 6; Rose (2007); Gazzaniga (2005): 31; Swaab (2010). 5 For critique on the neuroscientific turn, see: Leys (2011).

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neuroscience can provide definitive answers to exactly what it is our brain does and how it accomplishes this. The reality is that there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. Perhaps the most pressing question being how our material brain can bring forth the richness of our mental life, an issue known in philosophy as the “hard problem of consciousness”.6 A second pertinent question is to what extent our

brain’s functionsare innate (nature) or acquired throughout a subject’s lifetime (nurture). It is in regards to this latter question that views have shifted significantly in the past two decades. For the most part of the twentieth century the brain was considered to be biologically determined, meaning that our cognitive functions were thought to be hard-wired into our brain and immutable, save for a short flexible period during early infancy. Yet around the turn of the millennium these views shifted towards a view of the brain as highly plastic and sculpted by its dynamical interaction with the world it inhabits.7 In light of this latter

conceptualization of the brain the cerebral subject becomes less of an isolated entity, closed-off from the world it inhabits and determined by its biological blue print, and more of a dynamical subject which is open to the world, both shaping this world and being shaped by it. In these novel views the subject is freed from the confines of his own skull and posited as a dynamical network (the embodied brain) situated in a larger dynamical network (the world). What this means is that even when one accepts the claim that, in some way or another, we are our brains, what constitutes our subjectivity is still dependent on what model of the brain is adhered to. As this paragraph has shown, what models of the brain are generally adhered to by neuroscientists is subject to change.

The fact that till this day there is not one model which is irrefutably hailed as the model of the brain meaning that there is still room for theorization and speculation about the brain. Recently a number of scholars have started exploring the role that the arts can play in this theorization and speculation process. In their essay Neuroculture (2009) Giovanni Frazzetto and Suzanne Anker argue that since the nineteen nineties neuroscientific ideas, concepts and images have started pervading our culture and have manifested themselves in cultural products ranging from movies to literature, but also in the arts. According to Frazzetto and Anker these cultural outings can help us ‘create and inspire narratives about current neuroscience research and about the crucial role of the brain in our lives’ while at the same time possessing ‘the power to critically address neuroscience findings, as well as their meaning and implications for society and thus, serve as an interface between neuroscience and its public perception.’8 Vidal adds

to this that the arts can ‘reflect the extent to which the brain has become the self’s body […] without

6 Taylor (2013); for a theorization of “the hard problem”, see: Chalmers (1995). 7 Pitts-Taylor (2016): 17.

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making clear-cut explicit choices nor searching for conclusive solutions.’9 As such, art’s open-ended nature

can provide a much needed counterweight to neuroscientists’ reductionist claims.

This thinking about the brain is necessary, for while the brain has become intertwined with conceptualizations of selfhood, we lack a ‘lived relation’ to our brains. While we can feel our lungs pump and our heart beat, we are unable to feel our brain cognize.10 What better way to make people reflect

upon their brain than by giving them real-time feedback about their own brain activity? Recently a number of artists have started incorporating the neuroimaging technique called electroencephalography (EEG) as part of their interactive art installations. What EEG does is that it picks up on the minor voltage fluctuations which result from neurons firing in the brain by means of electrodes placed on the subject’s skull (often in the form of a simple, easy to use headset). These electrodes are connected to a computer which filters, analyzes and converts the data into the desired output format (visual, auditory or even kinesthetic cues) which can subsequently be fed back to subject in a process called neurofeedback.

To theorize these neurofeedback installations we turn to the work of art historian and art critic Claire Bishop. In her book Installation Art: a Critical History (2005) Bishop argues that installation art differs from more traditional art forms in that it ‘addresses the viewer directly as a literal presence in the space.’11 In installation art the spectator is no longer a mere by-stander, observing the work from a save

and detached distance, but ‘is in some way regarded as integral to the completion of the work.’12

According to Bishop this apparent assimilation of the subject into the work causes installation works, more so than any other type of art, to ‘emphasize [the subject’s] first-hand “experience”.’13 Bishop brackets the

word “experience” because she argues this term is ambiguous. Different philosophical traditions have interpreted this term differently, although they all point to towards ‘the human being who constitutes the subject of that experience.’14 Bishop therefore argues that a particular implicit model of the subject hides

behind every experience structured by an installation work. In her book Bishop distinguishes between four models of the subject surfacing in her study of a wide range of installation works. These models are a phenomenological model of the subject based on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, two different models of the subject based on Freud’s psychodynamic theories and, finally, a model of the activated political subject. While Bishop manages to capture a wide range of installation works within these four 9 Vidal (2009): 26. 10 Ricoeur (1990): 159. 11 Bishop (2005): 6. 12 Reiss (1999): xiii. 13 Bishop (2005): 6. 14 Ibid. 8.

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models of the subject, she admits that this list is by no means meant to be exhaustive.15 Similar to the

approach taken by Bishop, studying the experience structured for the participant by neurofeedback installations might unveil the model of the subject implicated in these installation works.16

Since in neurofeedback installations the participant’s very own brain activity is in some shape or form represented in the work, the participant, or to be more specific, the participant’s brain, becomes an integral part of the work. This allows the artist to embed the participant’s experience of observing one’s own (or other’s) brain activity in specific symbolic or affective contexts. This symbolical and affective structuring of the participant’s experience will subsequently result in the creation of specific narratives about or around the brain.17 Studying the experiences provided by these installations might, moreover,

unveil what model of the subject is implicated in these works.

In this thesis the focus will lie on two of these neurofeedback installation works, namely Suzanne Dikker and Matthias Oostrik’s Mutual Wave Machine (2013) and Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO (1999-2003). What makes these case studies special is that while both installations are similar in their general set-up, both installations explore the phenomenon of brainwave synchronization between multiple individuals, they diverge in the kind of knowledge systems they engage, the former being rooted primarily in scientific discourses and the latter in both Zen Buddhist and psychoanalytical discourses. The main question of this thesis then becomes: what narratives about the brain are created by Dikker and Oostrik’s Mutual Wave Machine and Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO?

The narratives created by both installations will not only comprise of the subject’s relation to its own brain but will also deal with the cerebral subject’s relation to its environment, its relation to other subjects and even to society at large. This thesis will likewise explore art’s role in relation to the sciences. Is art assigned a role of the critic whose purpose it is to critically (re-)assess neuroscientific findings, or can art play a more pro-active role? The fact that the two installations discussed in this thesis employ a similar set-up but create two distinct narratives about the brain raises the issue of how a concrete event like brainwave synchronization can end up evoking such diverging interpretations. It also posits the power of the symbolical and affective contextualization of events, in particular the symbolical and affective

15 Ibid. 54.

16 Throughout this thesis subjects who partake in an installation work will be referred to as participants. The idea behind this is that in contrast with the traditional visual arts in which the spectator takes a more distanced stance towards the work, in installation art the participation of the subject is an integral component of the work. 17 These narratives created by the art work by no means need to be conclusive and can even vary from person to person, yet I do argue that these narratives are in some way constrained, anchored by the specific symbolical and affective elements of the artwork.

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contextualization of our own brainwaves. While these issues emerge in relation to the two cases discussed in this thesis, these issues also raise viable questions about the contextualization of neuroscientific results in general, for instance in popular media.

Relevance

As described in the above, in contemporary society there is an increasing interest in neuroscientific research. As scholars like Vidal, Frazzetto and Anker have argued this popularity of the brain has subsequently led to the dissemination of neuroscientific ideas, concepts and images into cultural practices and products, amongst which are the arts. At present there is only a limited amount of literature which explores how artworks can make us think, or even experience, our relationship with our own brain. The literature that does exist is either written by those without formal education in art history, often resulting in one or two sentence long, and hence somewhat superficial, interpretations of artworks, or without first-hand knowledge about the neurosciences, often resulting in superficial conceptions about the brain.18 Even less is written about the particular topic of this thesis, namely art installations providing the

subject with real-time feedback about their own brain activity. With my background both in the sciences and in the arts I hope to contribute a more balanced account of how the brain is being ‘thought’ by the arts.19 This thesis will provide the perfect space for both an intensive and extensive study of two

manifestations of what I, from here on out, will refer to as neurofeedback art, hence filling up a void in the existing literature.

Methodology

This thesis will provide a descriptive, contextual, and interpretative examination of the two case studies under investigation. What this means is that both case studies will be subjected to visual analysis and the different genealogies which led up to the creation of these installation works will be laid bare. Since the two case studies are rooted in a wide variety of knowledge systems, ranging from art history to cognitive neuroscience and from Buddhism to psychoanalysis, this thesis is constituted on a multidisciplinary plane,

18 For an example of the former, see Vidal (2009); and for an example of the latter, see: D’Souza et al. (2012). 19 I have obtained a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology, a master’s degree in cognitive neuropsychology and am about to obtain a master’s degree in art studies.

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engaging and combining narratives deriving from all these disparate domains of thought. The interpretation of the two cases will for a part rely on what has already been written by others but will primarily be based on the narratives structured by the actual works themselves. In the case of Mutual

Wave Machine part of the analysis will be based on a video interview I conducted with Suzanne Dikker,

since little has thus far been written about her work.

The initial criteria used for selecting the two case studies presented in this thesis were that they had to be installations which provide the subject with feedback about his or her own brain activity through EEG. Secondly, I opted for installations which monitor the activity of multiple subjects at the same time for this will allow me to discuss the topic of intersubjectivity, a topic which I think has become even more important than before in contemporary conceptions about the brain. During the course of my investigation I decided to stick to Mutual Wave Machine and Wave UFO, for while both these installations employ a similar set-up, i.e. the synchronization of brainwaves between individuals, these installations created widely diverging narratives for the participants. A further criteria was that I wanted to discuss installations which I had at least seen for myself. I experienced Mutual Wave Machine during its presentation at Tivoli de Helling during the Science in the City festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands on the third of April 2016 and I saw Wave UFO during the Venice Biennale in Italy in 2005.

Since this thesis discusses artworks making use of neurofeedback, a technique which might be unfamiliar to some, in the following a short history of this technique will be provided. Besides functioning as a general introduction to this technique this history will also lay bare two genealogies related to the two case studies discussed in this thesis. As will become clear shortly, neurofeedback has been employed both as a scientific tool and as a tool for spiritual self-improvement.

A History of Neurofeedback

The story about neurofeedback starts out with the discovery of EEG. In 1929 psychiatrist Hans Berger published his results of the first electroencephalogram made on a human being.20 What he found was

that, apart from producing a lot of incoherent electrical activity, the brain was capable of bringing forth regular firing patterns which could be observed in the EEG output (which at that time consisted of scribbly

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pen drawings on a roll of paper). One of these regular firing patterns was a constant wave pattern fluctuating at around ten oscillations per second. Berger coined this wave the alpha wave.

Yet, the significance of Berger’s findings did not immediately catch on with the neurophysiological community. It was five years later that this would change due to the efforts of Nobel Prize winner Edgar Douglas Adrian.21 Adrian had become fascinated by the elusive alpha wave and had prepared a public

demonstration in which he would showcase the alpha wave. In this demonstration he showed that when a subject’s eyes were open the EEG output would show very inconsistent output, but when this subject then closed its eyes the line would suddenly transform into the regular alpha pattern. This wave would subsequently disappear when the subject was asked to perform a simple mental arithmetic task, but reappeared as soon as the subject finished the task.22 This led Adrian to the conclusion that alpha waves

were representative of a sort of idle state of the brain.23

We now take a leap in time to the end of the nineteen-sixties. As an extension of mathematician Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics and his theorization of the feedback principle, a principle which holds that a systems output can be controlled or augmented by feeding the systems output back to it as input, a number of scientists started investigating whether this same principle would also apply to the human brain.24 One of these scientist was psychologist Joe Kamiya. He would become one of the first to find

experimental support for the claim that providing subjects with feedback about their brainwaves will eventually enable them to either suppress or enhance their own brainwaves.25 What additionally made

his contributions valuable is that, in contrast with the prevailing behaviorist paradigm which considered the brain a black box, Kamiya was interested in his subjects’ ‘feelings, images, thought and hopes,’ or in other words, in their subjective experiences.26 Accordingly, Kamiya linked the alpha wave to a pleasant

feeling of relaxation, which he would subsequently relate to the state of consciousness attained through Zen meditation.27 Subsequent studies would indeed show that in practiced Zen meditators the alpha state

was evoked during meditation and that they were able to voluntarily control their alpha waves.28

21 Borck (2008): 369.

22 Idem.

23 Adrian et al. (1934). 24 York (2003): 36.

25 Converted from the article: Brenninkmeijer (2015): 9-10; see also: Kamiya (1968); Kamiya (1969). 26 Kamiya (2011): 65.

27 Kamiya (1968).

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The fact that Kamiya linked the alpha state to the state evoked by Zen meditation combined with the fact that Kamiya published his results in a popular magazine like Psychology Today kindled an interest in neurofeedback in different spiritual communities who viewed neurofeedback as a potent new introspective tool.29 In her genealogy of neurofeedback Jonna Brenninkmeijer argues that the image of

the self Kamiya thus restored ‘was not only a mechanical self that could be trained by a ringing bell, but also a spiritual self that could try to change its brain state to a more meditative one.’30 Yet, while the

interest in neurofeedback proliferated in spiritual circles, some of the earlier effects found in neurofeedback proved to be unreplicable or were otherwise deemed unreliable, which, in addition to the spiritual connotation neurofeedback had obtained, led to the disappearance of neurofeedback from most research agendas by the end of the nineteen-seventies.31 A renewed interest in neurofeedback in the

scientific community resurfaced during the aforementioned ‘decade of the brain’. In these studies focus was no placed solely on boosting Kamiya’s pleasurable alpha waves, but on a more general balancing of brainwaves in a range of different brainwave frequencies which had since neurofeedback’s invention been discovered, i.e. beta, theta and delta waves.32

Outline

In this thesis two case studies will be discussed seemingly emerging from the two respective genealogical strands of neurofeedback discussed above. The first case study, Mutual Wave Machine, is an art-science-educational project which explores the experience of ‘being on the same wavelength’ with someone, attempting to link this feeling of connectedness to actual instances of brain synchronization. In doing so the installation posits a dynamical alternative to neuroscience’s mirror neuron hypothesis. The second installation, Wave UFO, is a seemingly otherworldly installation which relates instances of intersubjective brainwave synchronicity to the Buddhist concept of cosmic interconnectedness and Jung’s notion of synchronicity. In the conclusion the narratives created by both installations will be tied together, followed by a discussion of more general issues raised by this study.

29 At the time neurofeedback was still commonly referred to as biofeedback. Brenninkmeijer (2015): 10; Roberts (1985): 938.

30 Brenninkmeijer (2015): 10.

31 Brenninkmeijer (2013): 148; Roberts (1985): 938. 32 Brenninkmeijer (2013): 148.

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Chapter 1

Mutual Wave Machine: Being on the Same Wavelength

Introduction

What does it mean to ‘be on the same wavelength’? This expression is commonly used to describe a feeling of mutual understanding, the experience of feeling no need to verbally express a certain thought or feeling to someone else because you sense that the other is thinking or feeling the same way. In Mutual

Wave Machine (2013) linguist and cognitive neuroscientist Suzanne Dikker takes a literal approach to this

phrase. Together with computer artist, interactive designer and software developer Matthias Oostrik she created an installation in which two people engage in a mutual gaze while their brainwaves are being measured through EEG. With this installation Dikker & Oostrik hope to find evidence for their hypothesis that the experience of “being on the same wavelength” with someone is correlated with an actual synchronization of brainwaves between participants.33 As such, this hypothesis provides a more dynamical

alternative to the popular mirror neuron hypothesis, a claim which will be further substantiated in this chapter.

The installation consists of two hemispherical screens placed in a dimly lit room (fig. 1). Two participants are seated in-between these two screens, facing one another and engaging in a mutual gaze. During the experiment participants are provided with feedback about their interindividual levels of brainwave synchronicity in the form of pixelated visual patterns projected on the hemispherical screens. They are asked to refrain from moving or talking for the muscular activity will interfere with the EEG data. Participants will therefore have to rely on a non-verbal form of communication mediated by their gaze. Participants can, moreover, attempt to influence their level of brainwave sync with the other by thinking of strategies to attune to the other, for example by simultaneously thinking of a shared memory, as one of the research assistants points out. The whole performance lasts eight minutes, not including the preparatory and post hoc assessment phase of the work.In addition to this main part of the experiment,

33 As described by Dikker herself on her own page webpage: <http://www.suzannedikker.net/art-science-education/> (15 Apr. 2016)

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participants fill out a psychological survey, both before and after the experiment, which assesses their empathetic capacities.

As the preceding description of the work makes clear, Mutual Wave Machine is no ordinary art installation. Dikker presents the work as a hybrid art-science-educational project, which means that besides providing an immersive and interactive experience for the spectator, the work will also help accrue a bulk of objective experimental data which will eventually be put to use in real-life educational settings.34 As a result of this hybrid nature, Mutual Wave Machine has been presented both in a cultural

setting, i.e. in museums and on a pop-music festival, and in a science and technology context, i.e. in science fairs and innovative technology festivals. The hybrid nature of this installation also means that it can be considered a meeting point of different genealogies, all rooted in distinct knowledge systems. As we will see in the following, Mutual Wave Machine has its roots in the field of performance art, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, making it an exemplary manifestation of today’s tendency towards interdisciplinarity.

Marina Abramoviç’s Energy Dialogue

First we will have to set foot in the field of the arts, the performance arts to be exact. In 2010 artist Marina Abramoviç gave a special performance as part of her first big retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which is called The Artist is Present (2010). For this performance Abramoviç spend 716 hours sitting silently and virtually motionless on a chair while visitor after visitor took place on a chair in front of her locking eyes in a mutual gaze (fig. 2). While no words were uttered during the course of this performance, spectators were visibly moved by the experience, some of them even bursting out into tears.35

Abramoviç refers to these encounters as energy dialogues, a form of communication based on an exchange of energies rather than words. In an interview with art critic Steve Pulimood she describes the concept of the energy dialogue as follows: ‘When you verbalize things and talk, you expend an enormous amount of energy. But if you don’t speak, the body generates a different kind of energy that you can

34 See Dikker’s own webpage: <http://www.suzannedikker.net/art-science-education/> (15 Apr. 2016) 35 Jarosi (2014): 155-176.

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radiate to the audience.’36 In Abramoviç’s view the energy dialogue is therefore a type of telepathic energy

exchange which transcends our ordinary modes of communication.

Her spiritual views do not prevent Abramoviç from opening up a dialogue with those adhering to more secular worldviews though. Funded by an audacious Kickstarter project Abramoviç initiated the

Marina Abramoviç Institute (MAI) with the aim to ‘encourage collaboration between the arts, science, and

the humanities.’37 Through this institute Dikker came in contact with Abramoviç when, as part of one of

the programs initiated by de MAI Dikker proposed to create an installation in which she would approach Abramoviç’s notion of the energy dialogue from a scientific point of view with the intent of finding a scientifically viable ground for this phenomenon. What resulted from this encounter was the installation called Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze (2011), created in a collaboration between Dikker, Oostrik and Abramoviç (fig. 3). This installation would later serve as the basis for Dikker and Oostrik’s follow-up project, the Mutual Wave Machine, which was realized without the involvementof Abramoviç.

When looking at either Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze or Mutual Wave Machine’s set-up one can clearly distinguish the similarities with Abramoviç’s durational performance The Artist is Present. Both installations center around two subjects sitting face-to-face, engaging in mutual gaze. Yet, while Abramoviç interprets the non-verbal form of communication which takes place during mutual gaze as an exchange of psychic energies, Dikker & Oostrik attempt to explain this phenomenon by measuring the electrical potentials elicited by the human brain. In other words, instead of grounding this type of communication in the metaphysical, they attempt to ground it in the realm of the physical.

Since the concept of psychic energy transfers does not lend itself easily for scientific inquiry, Dikker and Oostrik had to think of ways to operationalize this non-verbal form of communication. Since it suggests an implicit form of mutual understanding Dikker and Oostrik decided that the concept of empathy might be a suitable way to approach Abramoviç’s concept.38 For that reason they let participants

fill out a psychological survey assessing their empathetic capacities, measured by having them denote (on a 5-point Likert scale) to what extent different statements applied to them. Examples of such statements are: ‘I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me’, ‘I sometimes try to

36 Pulimood (2012) quote by Abramoviç.

37 <http://www.mai-hudson.org/about-mai/> (26 Nov. 2016)

38 Miriam-Webster defines the term empathy as follows: ‘the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner’ <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy> (26 Nov. 2016)

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understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective’ or ‘When I’m upset at someone, I usually try to “put myself in his shoes” for a while’. Yet Dikker and Oostrik’s choice to take intersubjective brainwave synchronization as a marker for empathy warrants some further contextualization. For this we first have to turn to the field of social psychology.

Behavioral Synchronicity

For years social psychologists have studied which behaviors mediate our social encounters with others. One of the simplest forms of a social attunement to the other is imitation. But, as social psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist Guillaume Dumas points out, ‘imitation is only related to morphological similarities of gestures.’ As an alternative to imitation Dumas proposes behavioral synchrony as constituting a ‘temporal coherence’ between interacting individuals, allowing for much more complex forms of social attunement to arise.39

This concept of behavioral synchronicity can best be described by the following: imagine having a conversation with someone else. Both of you take turns either speaking or listening to what the other has to say. During a smoothconversation, both of you are able to anticipate when to switch from the listener’s role to the speaker’s role and in the event that one of you is at a loss for words, the other is able to complete the other’s sentence. In a conversation like this it is as if both of you are communicating in tune to the same rhythm. This type of mutually anticipatory behavior is what Dumas refers to when he talks about temporal coherence and behavioral synchronicity.

According to social psychologists behavioral sync is mediated by a range of behavioral signals, most notably in the shape of bodily gestures, but also, as some studies have suggested, by more subtle forms of action like keeping track of another person’s gaze. In line with the example given in the previous paragraph, a behavioral study has shown that during a conversation the one who is speaking tends to look less at the listener than the other way around, but at key moments when the speaker wants to elicit a response by the listener, for instance in the form of an approving nod or a “mhm”, he shortly engages the listener in a mutual gaze.40 In another study, which explored the function of the gaze in a

non-conversational setting, subjects had to look at pictures with faces which either looked in a certain direction or directly at the viewer. In the former case the viewer’s attention was directed to the spatial orientation

39 Dumas et al. (2011): 49. 40 Bavelas et al. (2002).

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of the gaze in the picture, yet in the case that the picture looked directly at the viewer, attention was directed at the viewer himself. This mutual gaze resulted in the engagement of neural circuits related to the processing of theory-of-mind, meaning the attributions of beliefs, intentions, desires, emotions, or knowledge to others, a concept which is closely related to empathy.41 All these studies attest to the

potency of the gaze as a social cue allowing us to align our behaviors with those of others.

Studies in the field of social psychology thus impart a scientific foundation for taking the mutual gaze as a means of mediating the behavioral synchronization of two individuals, yet this does not yet explain Dikker and Oostrik’s choice to also look at levels of interindividual brainwave synchronization. Of course, there is the obvious conceptual link between behavioral sync and neural sync, both having to do with the attunement of two actors, yet as will become evident in the next paragraph this direct linkage of the two types of synchronization will prove to be too crude.

The Predictive Brain

We now shift focus from the subject’s behavioral interaction with others to what goes on in our brains during this interaction. But before delving into details it is necessary to first delineate how the brain processes the information it receives from the outside world. As already alluded to in the introduction of this thesis there has recently been a shift from conceptualizations of the brain as being mostly hard-wired, and stratified to views of the brain as being plastic and adaptable to its environment. Whereas traditional neuroscientific studies aimed at localizing specific types of information processing to specialized regions in the brain, contemporary neuroscientists view the brain as a complex and dynamically interconnected network. In the following an account will be provided of the predictive processing paradigm, a framework which has gained a lot of followers in contemporary neuroscience, amongst which is Dikker herself who builds on this theory in her scientific publications.42

Andy Clark, who can be regarded as the front man of predictive processing, pictures the brain as a pro-active prediction machine.43 According to this view the brain is not, as earlier metaphors of the brain

would have it, like a preprogrammed computer, passively awaiting for input to be presented to it which would subsequently be processed in a bottom-up manner. Instead, at every one moment the brain is

41 George et al. (2008). 42 Dikker et al. (2014): 6267. 43 Clark (2013): 181–204.

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actively trying to predict what sensory input signals will be presented to it in the next instant (a top-down process), while at the same time continuously fine-tuning its predictions by means of the error signals which occur when the brain’s probabilistic predictions do not match with the actual input from the environment. The brain can alternatively reduce prediction errors by acting out in the world, making use of the subject’s embodiment. In order to grasp this latter concept imagine playing a game of catch. When a ball is thrown at you, you do not just stand idly by predicting where the ball is going to hit the ground, you move your limbs so that you will be able to catch the ball with a single graceful leap. According to the predictive processing paradigm both perception and action function according to the same basic principle: the minimization of prediction errors. Another way of putting it would be to say that your brain is constantly trying to attune to its environment, for the better it is in tune with its surroundings, the better the subject will be able to function in it. Although in some instances this predictive nature of our brain becomes apparent to us, for instance during a conversation in which you try to finish the other’s sentence, for the most part these processes take place beneath the radar of consciousness.

In light of this novel view of the brain as being intricately dynamical and highly dependent on its environment, views about what constitutes cognitions also changed. For whereas in traditional neuroscientific research cognitive processes were thought to arise primarily from processes occurring within a single isolated brain, in theories of the predictive brain cognition is thought to arise from the embodied brain’s interaction with its environment, a view called extended cognition.44 In this view

cognition is no longer comparable to a computer program which will process a certain input signal via a pre-programmed information processes cascade, providing the same type of output every time it is presented with a similar stimulus, instead cognition is thought to emerge from the embodied subject’s unique and dynamical interaction with the environment in which it is situated. 45 Perhaps even more so

than in the processing of static objects the brain’s processing of another human being is even less predictable with both agents constantly trying to predict the other’s actions and intentions whilst simultaneously modifying their own actions accordingly. As a result, new scientific methodologies had to be developed which would allow scientists to capture the processes emerging during the interaction of two individuals. This led to the development of a technique called hyper-scanning.46

44 Clark (1999).

45 Pitts-Taylor (2016): 45; Thompson (2007): 188; Protevi (2006): 169–170. 46 Dumas et al. (2011).

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While the premise behind hyper-scanning is simple, monitoring the brains of two subjects at a time instead of one, the implications of this technique are considerable. With this set-up neuroscientists are finally capable of exploring the neural processes which emerge during the dynamical interaction between two subjects. A subject is no longer responding to static images of faces but is confronted with a real flesh-and-blood individual allowing for a more natural interaction to unfold. For instance, this set-up allows for spontaneous actions to occur, in contrast with the stimulus-response driven approach employed by traditional neuroscience experiments, the trade-off being that the experimenter has less control over the experiment. It is this lack of restrictions that makes this set-up just that more suitable for an art-science project like Mutual Wave Machine which takes the scientific experiment outside of the laboratory setting and places it in the cultural domain.47

Neural Synchronicity: From Intra- to Inter-Brain Communication

The question which still remains is: why did Dikker and Oostrik choose to explore interindividual brainwave synchronization as a measure of empathy? Besides embodying a literal interpretation of the proverbial ‘being on the same wavelength’ with someone, their decision also has a basis in cognitive neuroscience. Since neuroscientists have shifted from locationalist views about the brain in which specific cognitive processes were thought to be linked to specifically demarcated areas in the brain to a conceptualization of the brain as a complex and dynamically interconnected network, neuroscientific studies have started focusing on studying the brain’s connectivity.48 Besides looking at the most obvious

form of connectivity known as structural connectivity, which consists of the physical neural fiber tracts which connect different areas in the brain, researchers have also indicated the existence of a different type of neural linkage, known as functional connectivity. This latter type of connectivity manifests itself in the form of synchronized neural firing patterns across different regions in the brain.49

47 Hyper-scanning also has another unexpected connection with their project. As mentioned before, Dikker and Oostrik’s project started out with the intent to de-mystify Abramoviç’s beliefs in a telepathic transfer of energies during mutual gaze. Apparently the first uses of hyper-scanning were in the realm of parapsychology. In these studies the technique was used to demonstrate the telepathic transfer of information between physically and sensory isolated subjects. As such, this uncanny history of hyper-scanning adds another layer to Dikker and Oostrik’s collaboration with Abramoviç, see for example: Richards et al. (2005).

48 Bowyer (2016): 1. 49 Ibid. 2.

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Cognitive neuroscientists like Pascale Fries have argued that “neuronal coherence” (another term for brainwave synchronization) can account for a form of communication between different networked neuronal groups in the brain, something she has coined her ‘communication-through-coherence hypothesis.’50 The big advantage of functional communication over anatomical communication is that it

is more flexible since it is not constrained to pre-existing neuronal pathways. In theory, neural coherence can be used as a fast and nuanced form of communication between a multitude of anatomically distributed neural assemblies over different frequencies channels (either alpha, beta, delta, theta, gamma) changing dynamically over short time intervals. As such, communication by means of synchronized brainwave patterns is more compatible with contemporary views of the brain as being easily adaptable to its environment.

The communication-through-coherence hypothesis, as proposed by Fries, has one notable limitation though. It limits itself to the processes occurring within a single brain. This is not surprising considering that neuroscientists are used to monitoring one brain at a time. Yet the development of the idea that cognition arises in the embodied brain’s dynamical interaction with its environment suggests that social cognition arises from the embodied brain’s dynamical interaction with other embodied brains. This has led to the search for neural mechanisms which could mediate this dynamical interaction between subjects, a search which, due to the development of hyper-scanning, could be extended to processes spanning multiple brains.

In an article in which he pleas for a ‘two-body neuroscience’ Dumas argues that interindividual brainwave synchronization which occurs during the social interaction between two subjects might ‘reflect information being dynamically shared through an interindividual sensory-motor loop.’ He continues by arguing that: ‘[t]hese loops emerge from a bi-directional coupling between the participants, with the behavior of each one influencing the other’s behavior, and inter-brain synchronizations reflecting their perception-action entanglement.’51 In essence this hypothesis can be interpreted as an expansion of Fries

communication-through-coherence hypothesis in which brainwave synchronicity is now longer used solely as a communication signal within the brain, but also between brains. Mutual Wave Machine’s set-up provides a nice visual metaphor for this idea. The installation consists of two hemispherical projection

50 In her survey of the existing literature Fries shows how both beta and gamma waves have already been implied to partake in communication through neural coherence, and she proposes that further studies will have to reveal the potential role of alpha, theta and delta waves in this type of functional networked communication, see: Fries (2005).

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screens which, in the way they are placed, resemble the two hemispheres of a brain. The fact that participants communicate with one another while sitting inside this big brain results in the conceptual linkage of communication taking place within the brain with communication taking place between brains. As such Mutual Wave Machine visual presentation provides a subtle nod to the neuroscientific concepts that it builds on.

To provide a short recap, with Mutual Wave Machine Dikker and Oostrik have brought together two strands of scientific inquiry, one into the synchronization of behavior and one into the synchronization of brainwaves. By having participants engage in mutual gaze they hope to gain a better understanding of how the resulting interindividual sensory-motor loops are reflected in the neural firing patterns of participants’ brains. In order to accomplish this Dikker and Oostrik make use of hyper-scanning, a technique which allows them to monitor what type of neural processes emerge from the dynamical interaction between the individuals engaging in mutual gaze. The assumption is that intersubjective brainwave synchronization reflects our behavioral attunement to others. Since earlier behavioral studies have already suggested that engaging in mutual gaze activates brain circuits used in inferring the intentions, emotions and thoughts of others, the second assumption is that levels of intersubjective neural sync are correlated with subjective feelings of connectedness with the other, something Dikker and Oostrik assess by making participants fill out a psychological questionnaire assessing their empathic capacities. Yet before delving into the theme of empathy and how it is coded in the brain we turn to a very important element of the installation, namely its neurofeedback component.

A Neurofeedback Loop

In Mutual Wave Machine the neurofeedback component is an important, if not the most important element of the work. Unlike its predecessor Measuring the Magic of Mutual Gaze, participants are overwhelmed by retina-filling visual moiré patterns which are projected on the two hemispherical projection screens. Each of these patterns, participants are told, corresponds with a particular type of brainwaves, either alpha, beta, theta or delta waves, and they are constantly changing size in accordance with the level of brainwave synchronization between the two participants. The epicenter of the feedback patterns is situated right behind the heads of both participants, making it seem as if the feedback patterns emanate from the brain of the person sitting opposite you, again placing the emphasis on the participant’s brain.

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As one can imagine, these feedback patterns can be quite distracting, pulling the participant’s attention away from the gaze of the other. In an interview with the artist Dikker mentions that this effect was deliberate.52 She did not want participants to only feel what it is like to connect with someone else,

but also what it is like to feel a disconnect. In the event that participants show high levels of brainwave synchronicity, the brightness of the feedback signals serves to accentuate the positive feeling of being able to connect with someone. On the other hand, the darkness related to low levels of sync should underline the gloomy feeling of being unable to connect. Through this device Dikker and Oostrik thus try to affect the participant’s mood. It furthermore shows how Dikker and Oostrik convey the idea that social dissonance is as much a part of social life as social coherence.

But there is more to the feedback signals than this. What the predictive processing paradigm suggests is that the brain not only predicts the future states of the outside world based on the models it has built using past experiences, the brain is also constantly adjusting these predictive models based on the sensory information it receives from the outside world. As mentioned before this is what makes the brain plastic and capable of dynamically adapting to the constantly changing environment. In a social encounter between two individuals both subjects are constantly attempting to attune their behavior to one another based on their perceptions of the other, engaging in a dynamically changing interindividual perception-action loop. As Dumas has argued, it is the intraindividual synchronization of brainwaves which reflects these subjects’ perception-action entanglement.53 But what would happen when another loop is

introduced in this interaction, namely a neurofeedback loop which provides both subjects with visual feedback about how well they are connecting with the other on a neural level? Can the interaction between two subjects somehow be catalyzed by providing subjects with visual feedback about how well they are syncing with the other? And finally, does this then translate into increased subjective reports of feelings of connectedness with the other? In Mutual Wave Machine Dikker and Oostrik attempt to find scientific evidence for this claim.

To test whether subjective reports of feelings of connectedness with the other increase as a result of the neurofeedback signals, participants have to fill out a psychological rating scale for empathy both before and after having partaken in Mutual Wave Machine. Yet as any scientist would note, this alone does not provide convincing evidence for the claim that the neurofeedback component causes feelings of empathy to increase. This increase might, for instance, just be attributed to the fact that you just spend

52Video interview with Dikker (22 Apr. 2016). 53Dumas (2011): 350.

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minutes intimately locking eyes with the person sitting opposite you. To delimit the number of factors that might potentially influence the results, what would be required is a control condition in which subjects do not receive actual feedback about their brainwaves. This is exactly what Dikker and Oostrik did. Half of the participants partaking in Mutual Wave Machine are presented with real-time feedback about their brain states (the experimental group), while the other half is just shown a pre-rendered clip of alternatively expanding and reclining feedback cues that have no relation to the participant’s brain activity at all (the control group). The people that partake in Mutual Wave Machine will have no idea in what group they are placed. So chances are that when you participate in this experiment you are not even witnessing feedback about your actual brainwaves. This is one of those instances in which Mutual Wave

Machine leans more towards a scientific experiment than an art installation, for experimental validity

seems to be more important to Dikker and Oostrik than the participant’s experience. Yet, the inclusion of this control condition does allow Dikker and Oostrik to compare the results of both groups, and in the event that they find a significant difference between both groups, they could assert with some degree of certainty that whatever significant correlations they find can be attributed to the neurofeedback component of the installation.54

Taking the Other’s Perspective

Something special happens when two participants attain high levels of brainwave sync. A projection of the participant’s face will start to emerge from within the pixelated neurofeedback patterns projected on the screen opposite him (fig. 4). This footage is recorded by two small cameras mounted right above the heads of both participants. From this image we can again delineate a number of visual metaphors. First of all, the fact that the footage of your own face is shot from an angle just above the head of the other means that the projection effectively simulates the experience of being “put in the other’s shoes”, therefore providing a metaphor for the participant’s ability to empathize with the other. Second of all, there are a number of visual elements which suggest that our ability to empathize with the other is coded in our neural activity: a) the face is constructed out of the same visual elements used to represent patterns of brainwave activity, b) the use of coarse pixels in the visual feedback patterns is reminiscent of the pixelated blotches used to represent brain activity in fMRI images, and c) the face is projected on the

54 If neurofeedback has had any effect on subjects’ ability to connect with one another remains to be seen, for as of yet Dikker has made no claims to this effect.

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hemispherical projection screen which was said to resemble a brain hemisphere in the visual metaphor discussed earlier. Thirdly, the fact that the face emerges out of the visual feedback representing the combined neural activity of two individuals suggest that empathy arises from the interaction of two individuals and cannot be reduced to the workings of a single brain. Fourthly, the fact that the visibility of the face is proportional to levels of interindividual brainwave sync suggests that the more we are in sync with the other, the better we are able to empathize with the other, effectively portraying empathy as a gradient rather than an all or nothing principle. And finally, the mirror image of your own face emerging from the feedback patterns makes reference to the mirror neuron system, a system which was hypothesized to provide a neuronal account for (at least part of) our ability to empathize with others.55

Empathy in the Brain: The Mirror Neuron Hypothesis

In the 1990s Giacomo Rizzolatti and colleagues were studying the neural underpinnings of the grasping behavior of macaque monkeys, when they accidently made the following discovery. While the monkey was still hooked up to the recording device the experimenter made a grasping motion towards the object the monkey was previously grasping for during the experiment. What happened was that the same neurons started firing when the monkey observed the experimenter performing this grasping action, as when the monkey was performing the same kind of grasping motions himself. What this finding suggested, and what was later corroborated by follow-up studies including a number of studies performed on humans, was that the brain maps our observation of others performing a certain action on the same neural circuits employed when performing a similaraction ourselves.56 Due to the fact that the other’s

actions are seemingly mirrored in the observer’s brain this system was soon after coined the mirror neurons system.57

Then came the challenge of accounting for this mechanism. Why would the brain map its perception of others performing actions on its own motor schemas used to perform actions? Vittorio Gallese, who was also present during the initial discovery of mirror neurons, was the first to theorize this mechanism. He argued that the mirror neuron system was proof of how the brain is inherently wired to

55 In my interview with Dikker she admitted that she purposefully wanted to evoke this association with the mirror neuron hypothesis, but that she did not want to make it to explicit for she thought that most people would probably not be familiar with this concept. Video interview with Dikker (22 Apr. 2016).

56 Gallese (2003): 171. 57 Rizzolatti (2010).

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engage in social interactions with others, for it enables the observer to simulate the actions of the other, by implicitly and automatically imitating these actions in the observer’s brain, allowing him to ‘appreciate, experience, and implicitly and prereflexively understand the emotions and the sensations we take others to experience.’58 The mirror neurons system, Gallese argued, thus provided neuroscientists with a potent

neuroscientific explanation for our ability to empathize with others.59

Underlying this conceptualization of the mirror neuron system is the assumption that we implicitly recognize the other as being similar to ourselves, at least in the sense of having a similar body schema, i.e. two arms and two legs, and a shared capacity to perform actions and to experience and display emotions. Gallese calls this his ‘shared manifold hypothesis of intersubjectivity.’60 The obvious

evolutionary advantage of this system is that during our frequent encounter with other human beings this mirroring mechanism renounces the necessity to waste precious cognitive resources on the conceptualization of the other. Instead the mirror neuron system works in a very direct and automated fashion, simulating the other person’s embodied actions in a process which precedes or even completely circumvents our conscious awareness.

Critique on the Mirror Neuron Hypothesis

While the mirror neuron hypothesis has been lauded as one of neuroscience’s prime achievements, urging scholars to reconsider what it means to empathize with others, it has also evoked its fair share of criticism.61 One of the biggest critiques pertains to the universality of Gallese’s claims. In his theorizations

he suggests that the mirror neuron system is invoked during all of our social encounters. If mirroring the actions of others underlies our ability to empathize with other, as Gallese suggests it does, this would mean that all our encounters would necessarily be empathic encounters. Yet we can all think of examples in which our capacity to empathize with others has failed us, or in the very least that we tend to empathize more with some (your partner or you family) than with others (your annoying boss at work or that police officer who just wrote you that unwarranted ticket). In his articles Gallese does touch upon the topic of a failing mirror neuron system, but only in the context of providing a neural explanation for the lack of social

58 Gallese (2003): 177.

59 Ibid. 175-176. 60 Ibid. 177.

61 The following critiques have been converted from Victoria Pitts-Taylor’s discussion of the mirror neuron system, see. Pitts-Taylor (2016): 79-87.

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attunement in autists.62 What this does it that it pathologizes the notion of being unable to empathize

with the other, even though instances of social discord happen all the time.63

A second critique which can be raised about the mirror neuron hypothesis is that it is very

stratified. Although there is some incongruence between different authors, the majority of researchers

view the mirror neuron system as innate and as hard-wired in our brains.64 Especially early accounts of

the mirror neuron hypothesis sought out to localize mirror neurons in specific anatomical structures in the brain. If our ability to empathize with others is indeed hard-wired in our brains then this would mean that our response to others would for a great extent be pre-determined, leaving ample room for habitual attunement to our environment.

A final, and related, critique is that the mirror neuron system suggests that intersubjectivity can essentially be explained by looking at the processing taking place within a single brain. This critique is raised by Lisa Blackman who argues that the mirror neuron hypothesis ‘retreats to the singular neurophysiological body in order to explain the transmission of affect between people’65 In other words,

in the mirror neuron hypothesis the interactions which can occur between individuals are already pre-structured in our brains (Gallese’s shared manifold hypothesis). Nothing new can emerge from these interactions, for the results of these interactions are already pre-determined by our brains.

Empathy in the Brain: A New Hypothesis

While presenting the viewer with a mirror image of his or her own face in the context of a brain experiment initially evokes the association with the mirror neuron system, the actual experience provided by Mutual Wave Machine seems to sketch a different picture of the brain’s role in empathic processes. With this installation Dikker and Oostrik present the viewer with an experience which provides a dynamical alternative to the predominant mirror neuron account of intersubjectivity. What is more, this alternative model is capable of dealing with some of the critiques directed at the traditional mirror neuron hypothesis.

62 Gallese et al. (2007): 153-157. 63 Pitts-Taylor (2016) p. 70 64 Cook (2012).

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First of all, since the traditional mirror neuron hypothesis revolves around the mapping of sensory information onto motor pathways in the brain it is mainly concerned with the spatial dimension. In Mutual

Wave Machine, on the other hand, the focus lies on the synchronization of neural firing patterns between

participants, thus concerning itself primarily with the temporal dimension. As discussed earlier, the advantage of focusing on temporal events is that it allows the brain to communicate between anatomically distributed brain regions making use of a range of different communicating signals, i.e. alpha, beta, delta, theta and gamma waves. In other words, instead of being limited to the mapping of the other’s actions on the neural circuits used to perform these actions, the functional communication implied in

Mutual Wave Machine is open to a nearly endless array of different neural couplings both within and

between subjects, allowing the brain, in theory at least, to dynamically adapt to the other’s actions. Secondly, in the traditional mirror neuron hypothesis empathy could essentially be explained by studying a single brain, for it assumes that empathy arises from the automated mapping of the embodied actions of the other on one’s own motor circuits, a process which takes place in a single brain. The result is a very one-sided account of intersubjectivity. The model proposed by Mutual Wave Machine, on the other hand, argues that our ability to connect with others is something which emerges from the embodied brain’s dynamical interaction with other embodied brains. Whether a subject is able to empathize with another subject is not predetermined by that subject’s brain, but dependent on the specific situated context of the interaction. Dikker and Oostrik’s claim that a process of interindividual brainwave synchronization underlies our ability to empathize with others is telling in its own right. It implicitly assumes that studying the brain in isolation is futile, for it is impossible to measure interindividual brainwave sync by merely observing a single brain.

Thirdly, while both accounts of empathy take the subject’s behavior in consideration, the traditional mirror neurons hypothesis is very limited in how it deals with this information. It simply codes an implicit imitation of the other’s embodied behavior which it then uses to simulate what the other must be experiencing. In the mirror neuron hypothesis our ability to empathize with others therefore centers on our capacity to imitate the other. The model presented by Dikker and Oostrik, on the other hand, is not so much about imitation as it is about a broader attunement of behavior to the other based on the idea of predictive processing. They conceptualize social interaction as two subjects engaged in a perception-action entanglement, both subjects actively trying to predict what the other is going to do next and fine-tuning their own behavior accordingly.

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Finally, this view on empathy based on the predictive processing paradigm also embraces the fact that our ability to empathize with others is not universal, but context dependent. Whereas the mirror neuron hypothesis suggests that during each and every encounter our brain is simulating the actions of the other, therefore granting us access to his or her intentions, the model put forward in Mutual Wave

Machine is more nuanced. Since in the latter case empathizing is about being able to predict the future

actions of the other, this inherently implies that there is a gradient of prediction accuracy. Whether someone succeeds in predicting the actions or intentions of others is a probabilistic event, meaning that there is always an immanent chance of failure. For instance, when we interact with someone we have never seen before, often times these interactions will take more effort than interacting with someone you know very well. While surely we can use some sort of generalized social prediction models for these encounters, a nicely fitted model for the interaction with this person is not yet available and will need to be constructed over the course of time as a result of further interactions with this person. This is also why the survey participants fill out before entering the Mutual Wave Machine asks them about their affiliation with the person they are about to enter the installation with, i.e. stranger, friend or family. So instead of pathologizing the inability to empathize with others, as the mirror neuron hypothesis tends to do, the predictive model of empathy regards instances of social discord as an inextricable part of intersubjectivity.

Empathizing thus becomes about creating internal representational models of the other, which will result in someone being able to make predictions about what the other is going to do next or how he is going to respond to a certain action or event. The better the model of the other is fine-tuned, the more pronounced are the feelings of mutual understanding. To again bring up the example of the conversation, when you have a conversation with someone you possess a good predictive model of, something which you will have acquired through experience, you will be able to anticipate the words the other is going to say next, even allowing you to finish the other’s sentences for him. An experience like this, or at least that is the hypothesis, is accompanied by a feeling of “being on the same wavelength” with this person. Yet, as Mutual Wave Machine shows, this form of intersubjective alignment also takes place during less elaborate forms of intersubjective communication, like during mutual gaze. From a scientific methodological perspective mutual gaze is, moreover, a good way to approach intersubjectivity in the brain, for it involves a limited set of movement making it an easier form of behavioral interaction to dissect. In addition to that, the limited amount of bodily movements involved in mutual gaze make it the ideal topic for an EEG study in which the electrical potentials evoked by contracting muscle fibers can distort the EEG data. How exactly intersubjective behavioral (and neural) attunement is brought about in mutual gaze remains an open question, also for Dikker and Oostrik, but nonetheless Mutual Wave

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