Museum of Consciousness at Chemistry Creative, Brooklyn, New York

Welcome to the Museum of Consciousness

The Museum of Consciousness is based at Balliol College, Oxford University. The challenge to the artists in the Museum is to produce a reliable and measurable Altered State of Consciousness in a live audience, just with sound. We currently have around 100 artists in the Museum including Jon Hopkins, Lisa Lashes and Tom Middleton. 

The museum follows a circular structure designed to act as an engine for creative regeneration between the artist and the audience, thereby empowering both in equal measure:

1. Transmission - The artists TRANSMIT their sample/artwork to the audience.

2. Integration - The artists then help INTEGRATE their transmission with a mini lecture or talk which explains the piece in depth, and their work generally after the deep listening is concluded.

3. Feedback - Where the audience directly COMMUNICATES their thoughts and feelings back to the artist, in order to help them learn and potentially iterate on their piece.

Video explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrDa5qCodJc
Paper: https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2021.55

After 4 sold out shows, this intimate exhibition of the Museum of Consciousness 
will include 5 sound experiments, performed over 6 hours 
at Chemistry Creative, in Brooklyn, New York on Sunday 30th April. 
 

The featured artists playing on a full spatial surround sound system include: 

Alexandre Tannous (Soundmeditation.com), 
Satya Hinduja (Alchemic Sonic Environment),  
Josh Peck (The Dojo Upstate) and Rubin Kodheli (cello), 
and Torkom (Quantum Harmonix) 

1)  "Introduction to the Museum of Consciousness" by Carl Hayden Smith

The first session will be an introduction to the aims and objectives of the Museum - its history and trajectory. A couple of the best examples from the Museum will be performed in order to open the event: 

Tom Middleton - “Identifying fundamental frequency and resonance using ceremonial choral toning to explore harmony, synchronicity and human connection in the King's Chamber, Great Pyramid of Khufu, Giza, Egypt”

An interpretation of a unique and fascinating audio recording of improvised voice toning for a ceremonial performance by a small ensemble of male and female voices. Based around an experiment to determine the resonant fundamental frequency generated within the ‘initiation chamber’ that stands inside the King's Chamber deep within the great Pyramid of Giza. The purpose of the rose granite King’s Chamber and the human sized chest largely remains a mystery. Was it for ceremonial initiations? Or an ancient resonance technology for generating energy? Sound is vibrational energy in motion which we not only perceive and decode as noise, information, or music, but also can experience and feel as sensations of vibration. This chamber seems to amplify these vibrations when resonant standing waves activate the quartz crystal in the granite, delivering perceivably potent sensations and resulting higher states of being.

Jose Macabra - “Drilling the Unconscious”

The aim of “Drilling the Unconscious” is to liberate the body and the mind through atonality, improvised vocals, field recordings, drones and noise. The voice is a symbol of the universal body, in search of sensations. Different voice registers are transformed using various techniques: contact mics, filters, granulation and saturation. The intention is to transcend the conscious realm by partly abolishing tonal norms. Some parts of this experience might lead to a void, while other sections might connect the audience with an overload of unconscious matter. The intention is to take you on a journey to explore memories, emotions, and beliefs, which may contain unprocessed or repressed feelings. This existential sonic performance is designed to puncture your chest and wrap its grasp around your beating heart, demanding your total attention as you are bathed in its relentless sonic flux. 

More information: 
https://museumofconsciousness.space 

Bio: 

Carl Hayden Smith is Founder of the Museum of Consciousness and co-founder of the Cyberdelics Society. His research concentrates on the relationship between technology and the human condition. He is focused on using both the technological and biological means to alter, probe and study the spectral nature of consciousness. Carl is also investigating how to counter the Transhumanist agenda with Hyperhumanism. Hyperhumanism explores how technology can be used, primarily as a catalyst, for developing our own innate human abilities rather than outsourcing our human becoming to the machine. Raising over £10 million in research funding, his research focuses on generating new forms of media including Neuroadaptive Mixed Reality Training, Natural Media and Wearable experience (WE). 

2) “Sound Meditation: Audible mathematical ratios capable of altering and engineering consciousness” by Alexandre Tannous

Alexandre will give a talk on how to properly use the consciousness-altering properties of sound to heighten self-awareness, to unlock hidden powers we have within us to promote profound inner changes and healing, to fine-tune self-observation, and to attain a hypnogogic state. The talk will be followed by a sound meditation.

The Sound Meditation:

The sound meditation is a transpersonal journey with an Eastern emphasis on breathing exercises and visualization. Specific musical instruments played during the meditation allow participants to use sound as a therapeutic tool to disconnect from discursive thinking and to delve into a transcendental state. The goal is to enable participants to disengage their undesirable habitual patterns and to empower positive cognitive change. 

The Goal of the Sound Meditation:

You will gain various benefits from this experience and you may choose to do it for therapy, healing, rehabilitation, or for psychospiritual purposes—as an exploration of one's extended mind, the higher self, the inner world, the spirit world, or consciousness. Sound meditation is a powerful form of inner work geared toward enhancing and expanding self-awareness, self-observation, and self-inquiry. The ultimate point is to connect to gnosis. Gnosis is the non-intellectual, experiential knowledge, and knowledge of the heart that we tap into through feeling, thinking, being, and embodying all combined. This work brings a spiritual investigation to the shamanic type of work with great attention to the mechanics of the experience: who is observing? what is being observed? and what kind of labelling is being applied to what’s being observed?

More information: 
soundmeditation.com

Bio: Alexandre Tannous is as an ethnomusicologist, sound therapist and sound researcher. He has been investigating the therapeutic and esoteric properties of sound from three different perspectives - Western scientific, Eastern philosophical, and shamanic societal beliefs - to gain a deeper understanding of how, and to what extent, sound has been used to affect human consciousness. This search has led him to the intersection of art, science, philosophy and spirituality. The material he transmits about sound is based on a multidisciplinary research over 23 years: observations he made during his fieldwork in over 40 countries, scientific studies, personal experiences, and data collected from thousands of people he has worked with doing sound therapy. This has led him to a deeper understanding of how sound reveals and unlocks hidden powers we have within us to promote profound inner transformation and healing. 

3) “Essence - 136.10 Hz, The Earth's Primal Frequency” by Satya Hinduja

Essence is a multidimensional composition that engages the listener with the resonances and ratios of the natural world. It was born in 2014 by exploring the drone frequency of 136.10 Hz which directly represents in sound (via a transposition of 32 octaves) the annual journey of the Earth around the Sun, the rhythms of the seasons and therefore all life on Earth spring from this frequency.  This integrative composition built alongside Satya's personal sonic and musical journey begins with a spatial awareness exercise, revealing layers of sine waves, electronics, orchestral instruments, voices, instruments from a variety of world music traditions, spatial sound and emerging technologies inviting a new perception of time intended to unify the listener in the here and now. This exploration lends itself to the question 'how can the active use of deep listening help me find resonance with myself?' With sonic interplay of distance and tactile proximity, olfactory stimuli and blindfolded listening instructions the movement of, and improvisation with sound objects in acoustic and electronic space lay the grounds for the transformational power of sonic perception to emerge. Essence is the foundational composition of Alchemic Sonic Environment (ASE). ASE is a multisensory deep listening experience designed to invoke states of reflection, receptivity and exchange. 

More information: 
https://www.satyahinduja.com 
https://www.alchemicsonicenvironment.com 

Bio: Satya Hinduja is a composer, sound artist, producer and DJ working with a range of musical instruments, voice, field recordings and alternate tunings for spatial sound environments. Satya’s artistic practice embodies the synthesis of multiple trajectories: scoring for films and mixed-media installations and production, remixing and DJing (as Sound Underground). It was during this journey she discovered the interconnectivity between Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Kinesiology, Quantum Theory and Vedic philosophy. This path has evolved into her current project as founder of Alchemic Sonic Environment [ASE], a multi-sensory deep listening experience designed to invoke states of reflection, receptivity and exchange. Merging her mother culture's origin of meditative sound with the art of music, ASE is steadily evolving into a research and education platform exploring the nature of health as a process. Bridging ancient practices of sound and energy medicine with emerging technologies, Satya’s work researches the essence of resonance and seeks to redefine the transformative power of sonic perception. Since 2011 she has been collaborating with artists, neuroscientists and healing arts practitioners while exhibiting at various platforms such as Sages & Scientists Symposium, World Government Summit, Berklee India Exchange and the International Yoga Festival. She is a formally trained musician with a Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music (Boston) and a master's in electronic music production from Dubspot (NY). An ardent learner, she is in continuous studies with respected international sound arts and healing specialists including Aurelio C. Hammer (Svaram Musical Instruments & Research), EMPRES (Electronic Music Practice and Research Collective) Oxford University, Dr John Belieu, Joshua Leeds, Alexandre Tannous and Raz Mesinai. She was born in Mumbai and is currently based in New York.

4) "Layers, Dimensions and Depths" by Josh Peck and Rubin Kodheli (cello)

Layers, Dimensions and Depths is a journey through different layers of consciousness. Using the framework of a free dive down through various environments in the ocean, listeners are invited to visualise different inner worlds of emotions as reflected in the pairing of instruments, their spatial orientation and animation, and analogous geography of ocean texture to mood and ethos.

More information: 
https://resonantmindcollective.com/author/josh-peck 

Bio: Josh Peck is a composer, sound practitioner, experiential designer and immersive audio content creator. With a formal training in music, a career composing for film and television, and  background in sound engineering, his focus is on the therapeutic and transformative potential of sound. Josh specialises in creating 3D sound experiences for personal development, meditations, apps, museums, VR experiences, festivals, installations and wellness retreats. His work emphasises the use of overtone rich textures and instruments and natural acoustics as the primary tapestry for self inquiry, while leveraging immersive audio technology to accentuate the acoustic felt experience, expand dimensional awareness, and cultivate presence. He currently runs a sound retreat in the Hudson Valley together with his wife and co-facilitator Eliza, guiding people through transportive sound journeys in their 20.2 ambisonic listening room and studio: The Sound Dojo.

Bio: Juilliard-trained composer Rubin Kodheli is a celebrated, genre-transcending creative cellist. His compositions teem with contemplative invitation and nuance, providing the opportunity to listen repeatedly, each time ripe with the possibility of hearing something that previously went unnoticed. The inspirational tapestry of his work is intentionally woven from blended threads of rock, jazz and classical influences, a stylistic trademark that has afforded Kodheli a career rich in its diversity of output. From his compositions appearing in feature films such as Precious (2009), to his original symphonic rock compositions, to his collaborations as a performer with genre defining artists — including Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Henry Threadgill, Christian McBride, Dennis Russell Davies, Meredith Monk, Joan Jett, Tom Harrell, and Snoop Dogg — Kodheli creates an intimate, masterful reimagining of the expressive capacity of his instrument.
 

5) “Quantum Harmonix” by Torkom

Quantum Harmonix is a unique sound-based meditation and healing method. The powerful tones produced incorporate a natural fluidity & dynamism and have been shown to have profound effects on the mind, body, consciousness of an individual. Q.H. sounds are designed to lead one through an effortless and powerfully restorative meditation experience invoking relaxation and expanded creativity. The sounds also promote improved sleep quality and productivity by decreasing stress. The music is layered live and explores acoustical phenomena, white/pink noise, low-mid-high range frequencies; all folded into a tapestry of real time musical compositions. Torkom's presentation that will take you on a journey through the wondrous world of sound waves and harmonic overtones. Torkom will explore the science and application of sound as a tool for wellness; while showcasing its profound impact on the human mind, body, and soul. Through a series of practical demonstrations using the synthesizer, Torkom will reveal how various tones and frequencies can help radically shift mood, alleviate stress or trauma, and enhance creativity. Together we will explore the physiological impact of harmonic overtone based music and how sound can lead to a deep relaxation and heightened states of consciousness for the benefit of all. 

More information: 
https://linktr.ee/Torkomji
 

Bio: Torkom has been pushing the boundaries with his unique approach for over 11 years and hopes to ignite a passion for sound exploration and inspire a new generation of musicians and therapists to harness the potential of sound to promote healing, transformation, and personal growth. Torkom is a sound healer, meditation guide, and creator of Quantum Harmonix; a unique frequency healing modality.