The progression of a laser cut piece to a volumetric light sculpture.
I was fortunate during the pandemic to have access to a space with a large laser cutter where I could be alone and just create.
In January of 2021 I found a 3D model of someone’s brain scan on Thingiverse and sliced it up in blender. I then pulled the outlines into Illustrator and outlined them – and fed the laser I was working with piece after piece of wood – a total of 50 slices in all.
The I’d become a little obsessed with making a brain was that a young neighbor that I mentored had expressed to me she wanted to study neuroscience. We’d endeavored to find ways for her start building some foundational knowledge, even though she was a few years away from college.
Almost 5 years after I’d started the project, I took it out, fixed it up, painted it black and hand-wrapped 1700 LEDs onto it using copper wire that my dad gave me that he pulled out of an old industrial machine. Having completed several other LED projects with my partner, Pete, I was confident we could wire, map, and control it as a volumetric display.
I met Nora Gibson at the same TouchDesigner event in Montreal that I’d met my partner in 2019 – and as it turned out, she had similar fascinations with creating brain-related art. She had used a headband-type EEG device to produce audio patches and was interested in sharing her work to go along with the piece. This sensor can be used to drive visuals and animate broad regions of activity in the brain.