“Somebody’s noises are another person’s signal:” Art, Neuroscience, and Radio Astronomy

Abstract

«Cogito in Space» is an interdisciplinary art project that sends «thoughts» to outer space. The project, led by artist Daniela de Paulis, involves neuroscientists, radio operators and radio astronomers. They use brain waves collected by the neuroscientists in an electroencephalogram (EEG) scan while the person being scanned watches images of the Universe and Earth from space with a virtual reality headset. This data is converted into a stream of sound, and then transmitted by the radio operators to non-targeted points in the sky using the Dwingeloo radio telescope in the Netherlands. This article examines the dialogue that Cogito crafted between art, radio astronomy and neuroscience. From a sociology of science perspective, I argue that this dialogue is a poetic reinterpretation of scientific instruments used by neuroscientists and radio astronomers. With poetic, I refer broadly to the process of creating a set of symbols that weave connections between social worlds. These symbols’ interpretations remain open-ended, and exist in the interstices between the empirical and the speculative. Thus, while becoming vehicles of artistic expression, scientific instruments are re-interrogated in a new framework of meaning. I characterise the central ideas of the project, its process of design and its performance based on interviews with the members of the collaboration; participant observation during an academic presentation and a performance at the Dwingeloo radio telescope in November, 2018; and documentary analysis of reports and publications from the project.