Earnings, concentration, effectiveness, well-being. Is not this what chases the western culture? Are these not the bases around which revolve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people? And while phones, home automation devices and cars are becoming more intelligent, people can develop new levels of awareness and explore ways of life that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. This reality densely full of science and technology seems the ideal ambient for the brilliant media artist Marinos Koutsomichalis that thanks to the support of Ars Electronica and dell’Onassis Cultural Center has created a very complex project that revolves around the exploration of human metacognition namely the awareness on the part of an individual of their capacity and their own cognitive processes. Inhibition isn’t just an artwork, but also an open project and absolutely against the current: it is complex, does not hide behind an impact design, secrets or copyrights, and has as its end result a tangible disorder. Everything starts from a “smart” headphone that, among other things, is able to monitor the cerebral activity, synthesize audio tracks and emitting a series of sounds capable of inhibiting the concentration of the wearer. The public brain rhythm is destabilized, the man-machine connection to which we are accustomed goes awry or rather, changes face. And if everything ended thus, we could just talk about the sense of distrust and outrage … but no. Inhibition is also an open project, a series of workshops, a website that provides all the necessary documentation to allow the construction of new headphones, then picking up the various experiences of users around the world. An experience of building and sharing to rediscover, if ever proof were needed, that the most efficient part of the technology is the human one. Benedetta Sabatini

 

Marinos Koutsomichalis – Inhibition