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Our Dreams Come True: Introducing Mind Controlled Flight

An artist creates a hybrid “flight simulator” that enables you to levitate 30 feet in the air by concentrating really, really hard.

The desire to fly is as old as human culture itself. Myths and legends are littered with references to flight, from the famed Icarus of Greek mythology to the worship of bird-headed deities like Ancient Egypt’s Horus and Thoth, or Karura from Hindu and Buddhist cultures. As technology progresses, we’ve been able to indulge this obsession through the advent of aviation—we now have planes, jets, and helicopters that let us sail among the clouds—but the ability of individual flight still eludes us. Which is, of course, where simulators come in…

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Artist XXXY’s, or Yehuda Duenyas, project Ascent is a flight simulator or “part speculative simulator, part internal spiritual experience, part renaissance spectacle, part interactive ride” that allows an individual to levitate off the ground using the power of their mind. In what the artist says is a “mash-up of theatre, ride-attraction, installation, game, and iconic spiritual simulation” the experience invites users to launch themselves 30 feet into the air using electroencephalography (EEG), which is a process that records electrical activity from neurons in the brain. This information is then processed through Duenyas’ custom software, called the Infinity System, which communicates using Open Sound Control (OSC) with the StageTech rigging console, lifting the user high into the air. It even let’s you unlock “dynamic content,” like the eruption of a confetti canon or hearing James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” depending on how skilled your ascension is.

Duenyas explains in more detail:

The user straps into a harness and wears an EEG headset. As the user begins to clear their mind and focus, they begin to levitate into the air. A storm of sound and light conspire to distract the user from their goal of becoming the key figure in an ascending renaissance tableaux thirty feet in the air. The user has to stay calm and focused through an incredible amount of stimulus.

MAX/MSP and MIDI controllers configure the lights and sound to create what must be an equally bewildering, terrifying, and thrilling hybrid experience reminiscent of the flying sensation we experience in dreams. We’re imagining this is going to be incredibly popular when it’s unveiled at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, New York on May 12th. And this is just one project that uses XXXY’s Infinity Simulator, a multi-media platform invented by the artist that can use any type of control device to manipulate live elements, such as 3D rigging, sound, lights, video, and gaming content.

For further explanation and demonstration, see the video below.