“Mental Garden” by Bastien Didier
Title:
- Mental Garden
Artist(s) and People Involved:
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Artist Statement:
Exhibition. Forum des Images, May 16 – 21
Bastien Didier is an ISEA2023 selected artist
Mental garden allows everyone to create, collect and share memories materialized by mental flowers. Mental Garden is an interactive experience based on the collection of brain waves. The experiment aims to create a collection of stored, shareable and exchangeable mental flowers. The device allows visitors to record a mental memory in a time-stamped digital capsule then uploaded on an eco-friendly blockchain to be authenticated.
Thus, each user is invited to equip themselves with the headset and start recording to monitor their brain activity. As he thinks about his memory, his brain activity is translated to generate a digital plant which is the materialization of his thought. With the different creations, a mental garden is created representing the mental memories recorded by the visitors.
At the end of the experience, the visitor’s creation is minted on OpenSea, the decentralized NFT marketplace. Each visitor then becomes an artist and has the opportunity to share or sell their owned artwork. Through the collection, every creation contributes to a collective artwork.
The real-time generative design is made possible thanks to brain-environment interfaces allowing everyone, regardless of gender, age or physical condition, to generate their mental flower in an inclusive way.
Thinking about the garden means having to go back to the foundations of the world and humankind. The garden offers a form of appeasement, calm and serenity. Let’s cultivate our mental garden!
