Affective Induction Spa

6-8 min performance
Bone conduction sound massage, placebo pills, tickle fan, wax chair, light strobes with vibrated hands and touches
Dimension variable
Piece commissioned by the Boston MFA
Collaborative work with #hotmilksfoundation: Adam Horowitz, Ani Liu, Xin Liu, Gershon Dublon, Rebecca Kleinberger, Akito Von Troyer, Sands Fish, and Rainar Aasrand, a range of support from different MIT laboratories.

Together with a group of friends – scientists, designers, engineers, and artists from MIT- we found an art collective called the HOTMILKS Foundation. The collective organized a series of participatory performances in Museum of Fine Art in Boston from  2016 – 2017.   In this commissioned piece by the museum,  we imagined an Affective Induction Spa- the future of Art, where we used findings from science to induce emotional experiences of pleasure and happiness directly into the participants.

A performance piece in which neuroscience and art converge to transform the experience. We skip the unpredictability of the aesthetics and instead induce the art experience directly with emotional induction techniques from brain science. We are, after all, quantified selves, measured and measuring. Affect and aura are not immune to mechanical reproduction.

*text by Adam Horrowitz and Ani Liu