Brain Waves (Electroencephalograms)

In 1980, while doing a rotation in the electroencephalogram (EEG) laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, I asked one of the EEG technicians to do my own EEG. I had prepared a list of 18 artists and artistic topics to think about as my own brain waves were recorded.

As my thoughts were being traced onto the EEG paper, she carefully recorded on the tracing paper what topic I was thinking about. The pieces themselves have 16 lines of my own brain’s electrical activity.

The size of each piece is 14 x 24 inches (Thinking No Thoughts is 14 x 48 inches). These tracings have been used in my own art series Symphonic Thoughts and Emergence.

The titles of all the pieces in this series are:

  • Thinking of the Significance of Contemporary Art
  • Thinking of the Meaning of Art
  • Thinking of Franz Kafka’s Law
  • Thinking of Samuel Beckett’s Malone
  • Thinking Creative Thoughts
  • Thinking of Sol Lewitt’s Grids
  • Thinking of Michelangelo
  • Thinking of Rembrandt
  • Thinking of Raphael
  • Thinking of Vermeer
  • Thinking of Ciurlionis’s Paintings
  • Thinking of Robert Morris’s Mirrors
  • Thinking of Alice Aycock’s Cities
  • Thinking of Marcel Duchamp’s Bride Stripped Bare
  • Thinking of Joseph Beuys’s Tallow
  • Thinking of Ad Reinhardt’s Crosses
  • Thinking of Mark Rothko’s Black
  • Thinking No Thoughts