Internalizing the music
Gee, a doctoral student in composition and sound design in UdeM’s Faculty of Music, is interested in emotional and physical responses to music, and has a particular fondness for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), a pleasant tingling sensation that can be induced by digital audiovisual stimuli.
Those interests have also led her to use biosensors to measure involuntary physiological reactions—sweating, heart rate, brain activity, etc.—to an artistic experience, and from there to apply biofeedback techniques that use measurements of organic functions to better understand the body’s workings.
“ASMR and biofeedback have pointed me towards a new way to produce work, a more material way,” said Gee. “People often make a sharp distinction between mind and body. Why couldn’t listening to music be an experience that links the two? Why not value the physical sensations as much as the emotions? Using biosensors, I can determine with precision whether listeners are affected by the music, by letting their autonomic nervous system do the talking.”
