Katija Bonin
The Silhouette
After five years of conceptual design, paired with a successful grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and support from McMaster University, the L.I.V.E. Performance Laboratory is under construction.
Located in McMaster’s Psychology Building, the facility will include a small concert hall and stage with seats for one hundred.
Although seemingly simplistic, it is the incorporated technology that defines this project as a Large Interactive Virtual Environment (L.I.V.E.), which will facilitate research in the areas of music and neuroscience.
The walls of the lab will be lined with a dense array of loudspeakers, which will allow users to mimic virtually any acoustic environment – “from a subway station to Carnegie Hall,” said project director Laurel Trainor.
The lab aims to fuel investigation into basic questions pertaining to the significance and universality of music in human society. “Why do people still go to concerts, when they could just listen to music at home?” said Trainor. “How do people coordinate and entertain together when playing music?”
The audience seats will be wired to measure physiological responses such as heart rate, breathing rate, skin responses, and muscle tension responses through the fingers. Thirty of the seats will be equipped with EEG sensors, enabling researchers to monitor audience neural activity. Performers will also have an EEG system, able to track four musicians at one time.
Additionally, there will be a motion capture system, tracking the movement of performers while making music and audience movements in response to music, and the back of the stage will house an array of monitors to measure the effects of visual stimuli.
The technology will allow researchers to investigate everything from how a musician’s brain copes when fellow performers make a mistake to an audience member’s physical and psychological responses to different types of music.
The concept of such a laboratory originated in McMaster’s Institute for The Music and The Mind, a multi-disciplinary institute incorporating psychology, neuroscience, engineering, music, mathematics, kinesiology and the health sciences. It is an extension of a three-tiered mandate aimed at promoting research in music cognition, music education, and music activities in the community.
It is known that music plays a role in altering mood, and music is traditionally used in many social gatherings, from parties to weddings to funerals. Research has found that “people engaging in music making or dance feel a closer social bond. This facility will enable us to test such theories,” said Trainor.
The design and technology of the facility, although originally intended to discover how music affects people, will also enable research on a variety of topics.
Already, Steven Brown and Matthew Woolhouse, researchers in the field, plan to use the space to test the psychological response to dance, while Sue Becker and Ian Bruce plan to test how well hearing aids work in realistic auditory environments, and Joe Kim, professor of Psychology at McMaster, plans on using the space to forward his research in pedagogy – the method and practice of effective teaching.
Trainor affirmed that this project is “like no other, and its potential is unlimited.”
Construction began in early January, and in the current timeframe, will be complete by Spring 2013.
Katija Bonin
The Silhouette
“Art refracts science, not reflects it,” according to McMaster Health Science professsor emeritus Patangi Ranganchari.
Ranganchari spoke at the opening of the new exhibit at the McMaster Museum of Art. The show, entitled ‘Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art’ is a collaborative artistic project exploring the complex social, legal and ethical issues associated with breakthrough developments in life sciences technology, with a particular focus on stem cell research.
Curator Lianne McTavish said that the exhibit “makes a lot of sense at Mac.” McMaster has been considered a “world leader in stem cell research,” and with last week’s generous donation of $24 million from the Boris family to go toward this budding research field, the exhibit content undoubtedly intersects with the work going on at the University.
The science-inspired art exhibit opened on Feb. 9 and will be on display until March 31.
The launch of the exhibit was accompanied by a panel discussion with professors Roger Jacobs and Rangachari, as well as artists Derek Besant and Daniela Schlüter. Sean Caufield, an artist and professor of Art at the University of Alberta, moderated the panel discussion.
Caufield started the panel discussion with an emphasis on the impact of art and social media on the illustration of scientific ideas to the general public. He noted that the title of the show was influenced by the fact that “there is much promise in stem cell research, but also pressure from the public to complete it quickly.” Jacobs expanded on this point;“Science has gone from manipulating our environment to manipulating the temple of the body.”
Stem cell research is rapidly advancing, from just fourteen years ago when stem cell lines were first isolated, to last month where a phase one trial was constructed by growth factor. Jacobs cautioned that “some of the doors [stem cell research] opens are frightening if we go through them too quickly without thinking,” making it imperative that researchers carefully evaluate the applications and consequences of their research.
On the panel, Besant commented on the similarity between scientists and artists, saying that “the failure of scientists is comparable to the failure of artist,” and “if you don’t fail, you don’t learn anything.”
Schlüter employed a metaphorical decription of her art, explaining it as looking through a microscope. “The further away from the image, the more abstract, but the closer you go, the more clear,” she said.
She also talked about her experience with attaining an image of her chromosomes. She had asked the scientist she was collaborating with what her chromosomes looked like, and she said the action of having to draw it out helped him to more deeply understand his research. Now, her chromosomes can be spotted in her mixed-medium art on display.
Originally a pharmacologist, Rangachari argued that there is a certain permanency to a work of art, contrasting with science where, “sooner or later someone will find you wrong.” The constant progression of scientific discovery allows for, “the brilliance of science for one generation to become the lame science experiments of the next,” he said.
Art gives scientists and society alike a different viewpoint into complex issues. Caufield reaffirmed that “art is a building box of visual language that can sometimes tackle big questions.”
There is a sense of anxiety and hope among scientists, which in turn is conveyed through art and finally received by the public. Stem cells are tangible evidence of the mystery that lies within us, and no one knows where this mystery will lead us.
