The Moniker-Ingram Studio Sessions

Presented in association within 'Neuro-Action-Painting'.

Simon Ingram and Moniker (Samuel Scott, Luke Buda, and Conrad Wedde from the Phoenix Foundation) improvise in this live studio session to create three neuro-action paintings. In the studio sessions, grey matter meets paint matter and sound energy.

For 'Neuro-Action-Painting', Ingram has collaborated with John-Paul Pochin to develop a technical framework that interprets a users’ brain oscillations to generate a wandering line painted by a machine. In the Hancock Gallery, Moniker will play along-side Ingram’s machine, and an as yet to be determined person's brain activity will be monitored using a consumer-grade electroencephalogram (EEG) headset as the session unfolds. Aside from the collaborative music-based intervention, what is new here is that the framework has been remodelled to create a musical output via a midi device, creating an extra layer of sound in a live improvisation, and a feedback to Moniker. Three neuro-action paintings will be made one for each member of Moniker.

As well as their contributions to the Phoenix Foundation, Moniker are the musicians behind the 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' and 'Boy' soundtracks. Simon Ingram is an Auckland based artist whose work increasingly uses art-science approaches to explore the interconnectedness of things. Of the 'Moniker-Ingram Studio Sessions', the artist says, “with painting it still seems as if the old questions, what to paint and how to paint it, are the ones I return to. The studio sessions with Moniker provide a completely different way to go about asking this same question.​"