Therme Mind Collaborates on Activations for Shy Synchrony, an Installation by DRIFT Presented by Superblue and Design Miami/

A series of panel discussions within the framework of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum, meditation workshops, and special live performances accompanied the installation.

Taking over the 2500 sqm Event Hall 1.0 at Design Miami/ Basel, Superblue partnered with Therme Mind to present a multi-sensory experience featuring the Dutch artist duo DRIFT and a site-specific pavilion by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Throughout the week, special programming activated the installations, including a series of panel discussions, meditations and workshops presented within the framework of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum.

Created by DRIFT for Design Miami/ Basel 2021, Shy Synchrony consisted of a poetic, upside-down landscape of moving Shylights perpetually blooming in mid-air, inviting visitors to contemplate natural rhythms and their soothing effect on our state of being. The site-specific installation filled Design Miami’s massive entrance hall, providing visitors a moment of synchrony with their immediate surroundings. In a time that is defined by human isolation and a disconnect from nature, DRIFT’s practice aims to address the need for a new alignment with our environment and a return to the strength of communal interaction. Shy Synchrony incited us to explore our innate response, individually and collectively, to natural movements, creating a deepened sense of awareness for the singular qualities of all environments we traverse.

“Natural movements remind the body of how to adapt and align with our environment,” expressed Lonneke Gordijn, DRIFT artist. “In this time of disconnect and climate crisis, we are in desperate need of aligning with each other to create a vision that will secure the future of our planet.”

In response to DRIFT’s installation, architect Sou Fujimoto presented the pavilion Forest of Space, an elliptical structure based on the idea of recreating a dynamic forest that interfered with the space and the movement of visitors. People meandered through this forest of long wooden pieces vertically aligned, and depending on where each person stood, creating a sense of reconnection with nature in dialogue with Shylights’ light elements and movements. Sou Fujimoto’s space invited visitors to interact with the environment, allowing them to engage in conversation about the past, present, or future of architecture, urban settlements and the natural environment, and on experimenting with spatial or social qualities in connection to the large-scale pavilion.

Shy Synchrony was presented by Superblue in collaboration with Therme Mind, the new joint venture between wellbeing leader Therme Group and Neuroscience pioneer MindMaze. MindMaze's groundbreaking brain restoration and learning technology is adapted by MYND for application in architecture, design, and art projects, to create digital, multi-sensorial solutions for mental and physical wellbeing. MYND uses neurotechnology to interact with users’ mind-body functions and design responsive experiences based on biofeedback. In Shy Synchrony, an initial render of MYND technology was utilised, foreshadowing its future developments, by correlating the movement of DRIFT’s Shylights with visitors’ neural and heart rate activity, leading them into deeper states of consciousness.

“Through our joint venture with Therme Mind, MindMaze is now expanding into the larger interactive art and cultural sectors, reaching wider audiences, and underlining the significance of new interactive platforms for mental health and wellbeing in contemporary society,” commented CEO of MindMaze, Tej Tadi. “This joint venture is creating a radical shift in the way we perceive and consume both technology and art.”

MYND developed a unique headset with sensors that captured information from the brain, the face, and the heart, bringing one’s internal state to life via DRIFT's Shylights. These embedded sensors registered brain relaxation patterns, facial muscular activities and heart rate variations, leveraging sophisticated AI algorithms to guide the artwork's expressions and movement patterns in real time. As a participant engaged in a guided meditation experience donning the headset, their internal bodily state manifested visually via a unique choreography of the artwork. Viewing and understanding their impact on Shylights' choreography triggered their visual-cortical neuro-biofeedback loop, impacting their inner states in the process.

“By integrating Therme Mind’s neurotechnology, Shy Synchrony creates an experience where audiences can become a part of the artwork, observe their mental activity and explore the conditions that support their own mind-body wellbeing,” said CEO and Co-Founder of Therme Art, Mikolaj Sekutowicz. “We are pleased to present this work at Design Miami/ Basel this year, as part of Therme Mind’s newest art commissions programme.”

Offering a place of calm and congregation at the heart of the fair, a series of activations across the fields of science, meditation, and architecture were offered in the space throughout the week.

As part of the Wellbeing Culture Forum, Therme Art presented a talk, “Art and Architecture as Healing: Shaping a Mental Health Economy”, on Wednesday, 22 September. The discussion centred on architecture’s potential as a medium to improve mental health, going beyond architectural preconditions previously founded on the notion of productivity. Guest panellists included Lonneke Gordijn, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Precious Okoyomon, Torkwase Dyson, Franziska Kessler, Mikolaj Sekutowicz and Olaf Blanke. Art, architecture, and cultural production were introduced as resources that hold the power to create physical spaces in which mental health becomes a priority.
Co-Moderator and Artistic Director of Serpentine, Hans Ulrich Obrist, opened the panel discussion by introducing guest panelists and their backgrounds.

Interdisciplinary Artist, Torkwase Dyson, spoke about the inevitability of confronting current architectural preconditions that continue to hinder us in our pursuit of achieving wellbeing for all:
“Time only exists because of a relationship to heat and friction and movement. And if we start thinking about architecture, this idea of otherwise really brings us to things that are not necessarily about the measure of time, but the confrontation with the indeterminable.”.

DRIFT Artist Lonneke Gordijn commented on the process of creating Shy Synchrony and its implications behind building and creating nurturing structures:

We have created an environment that is without nature. I think that we use technology as a learning tool to try and figure out to what extent we can respond to it in an emotional way. In a way, it can bring me the feeling and emotion that I'm looking for when I don't get it from a specific environment. Therefore, I use it to create spaces that feel natural.”

In speaking of MindMaze and its capacity to create wellness environments, Neuroscientist Olaf Blanke commented:

We have used actual technology to reconnect with our body in a different way—using MindMaze virtual reality and other forms of technology to reconnect, maybe at a distance, with our body, with new forms of mirrors mediated through technology.”

“There are few spaces in the world where you're allowed to actually grab yourself for a moment of rest and peace because of the world’s constant ferocity and the way in which it moves. So, I'm always trying to think of these portal spaces that you can find yourself in the world, but also out of time,” reflected Poet and Artist, Precious Okoyomon.

Meditation and Wellness Guide and Professional, Franziska Kessler, emphasised the importance of breathing techniques and grounding practices throughout the week, and how without this mind to body alignment should be accessible in the infrastructures we create.

“When we have meetings in hostile environments, the energy in the room tends to exhaust itself. We often forget the fact that we all came together to create something in the first place. What we are planning on doing now, is to incorporate breathing rooms into our buildings.”

Therme Art GmbH
Erkelenzdamm 5
10999 Berlin

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Therme Mind
Therme Mind is a joint venture between wellbeing leader Therme Group and neuroscience pioneer MindMaze. Therme Mind integrates MindMaze’s groundbreaking neuroscience technology into Therme’s holistic approach to wellbeing, to methodically redefine the role of preventive health in our culture and society. Under its initiative MYND, Therme Mind adapts MindMaze’s medical-grade neurotechnology for application in architecture, design, and arts projects, to create digital, multi-sensorial solutions that promote mental and physical wellbeing. Through biofeedback-based experiences that interact with users’ mind-body functions, MYND invites selected artists to create interactive artworks, addressing questions of mental health and wellbeing.


DRIFT
DRIFT Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn (1980) and Ralph Nauta (1978) founded DRIFT in 2007. Through their work they manifest the phenomena and hidden properties of nature with the use of technology in order to learn from the Earth’s underlying mechanisms and to re-establish our connection to it. Since its inception, DRIFT has worked on experiential sculptures, installations and performances that examine our relationship and the influence of technology on the natural world. Their work has been exhibited at Victoria & Albert Museum (2009, 2015); Met Museum (2010); Stedelijk Museum (2018); UTA Artist Space (2019); Garage Museum (2019); Mint Museum (2019); Biennale di Venezia (2015); Pace Gallery (2017) amongst others. Their work is held in the permanent collections of the LACMA; Rijksmuseum; SFMOMA; Stedelijk Museum; and Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2014, Drift was awarded the Arte Laguna Prize, Venice.

This release was published on openPR.