The History of EEG Research in Cybernetics and Artistic Expression: Biological Feedback and Structural Coupling

My intent in this paper and presentation at the 2024 Conference of the American Society for Cybernetics was to investigate the intersection of three critical concepts, namely biological feedback, structural coupling, and language, by illustrating the history of research and works of art that have utilized the electroencephalogram (EEG) method. Together, these concepts offered a framework for exploring the complex interplay between brain function, interaction, and environmental adaptation in synchronicity. While situating EEG research in the general context of cybernetics by investigating the works of Norbert Wiener, William Grey Walter, and Heinz von Foerster, this paper presented the artwork, BrainWave Drawings (1974), by the American artist Nina Sobell. In an interactive installation, Sobell measured and recorded the EEG data of participants who were sitting next to each other in a living room environment. Simultaneously, she superimposed the waves into a monitor and experimented with the adaptation of the brainwaves of two people without the exchange of verbal and spoken language. Explored in Sobell's work, the phenomenon of communication through biological feedback without relying on language remains an enigma in literature. However, every nonhuman organism, such as cells, bacteria, or dogs, adapts to environmental changes based on biological feedback. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela named this adaptive strategy structural coupling, which has been described as the process of perceiving, recognizing, and conceptualizing the natural or social environment. This definition involves forming cognitive or mental representations of the environment and adjusting behavior based on biological perceptions and evaluations in a consensual domain. BrainWave Drawings investigated a similar inquiry in which Sobell extrapolated the possibility of structural coupling as a communication method by solely using the biological feedback of EEG. The implication of this project opened a dialogue on human, nonhuman, interspecies, and machine communication based on the notions of feedback and environmental adaptability.