Yes, I See

Aluminium, Acrylic, Electronics, Mindset & Thoughts

2013

Already, the mind is becoming a new digital frontier. Imagine a world where you can control your phone, play a video game, navigate the web using only your mind. Turn off the lights. Live halfway in the matrix, able to express your will without movement.

The study of the drastic changes and the trajectory of technological progress over the last thirty years is both awe inspiring and confusing. The absolute personal involvement, some by choice, some by necessity of every level of society from the individual upward in the rapid change has modified every aspect of our lives. From communication to the stock market, from work to entertainment. The internet and the resulting changes are the equivalent of the printing press or radio’s impact on humanity. In some ways we adjust quickly. In others realization is slower and consequences can not only be positive but damaging. Life is a series of choices whose full ramifications are not always clear when the decision is made.

Five Years Out has allowed me to play. Play with a technology only recently in its infancy but rapidly developing in function and form. Yes. I See simply interprets EEG data in a somewhat random manner, creating a unique pattern or signature for each user. It does not store data. Other platforms may. Consider that while you see yourself through the windows. Consider the convenience the technology will provide. Consider the little box you click on, the box that reads “I agree to the terms of the Service and Privacy Policy”. Consider it all... and watch yourself doing so.

Yes. I See interprets EEG data streamed through a MindSet headset. It brings in the EEG data at near real-time and plays with it, analyzing and crunching numbers into colors and patterns. The user controls it, concentrating, meditating, focused, or distracted. Visible, beautiful and public.

I dedicate this piece to my Dad, Charles Sparrow who started me on this path long before I realized it.