The Sympathy Gentle Pain Machine

The Sympathy Gentle Pain machine is an interactive performance combining meditation and painful electric shock.

Thought patterns produce distinct electrical energy within the brain, and specific effects within the universe. Because of the disconnected nature of human existence, few people are able to conceptualize, even at the level of metaphor, the real way that the nature of our consciousness affects each other. The Sympathy Gentle Pain Machine aims to dramatize this connection in a distinctly tangible way.

Participating pairs of visitors are seated in an enclosed space, separated from each other by Plexiglas, and viewable to the audience by closed circuit television. Each participant has electrodes on their heads connecting them to an EEG machine, and an electric shock collar around their neck.

The EEG machine is able to detect the constantly changing balance of beta (waking) brain waves and alpha (meditative) brain waves. This information is displayed to the audience via monitors and to the participants through a modulating bell tone. Soon after the participants are strapped in, the electric collars begin producing mild but discernable electric shocks. By mediating, subject “A” is able to shift to an alpha state, which reduces and eventually stops the shocks for subject “B”. By becoming angry or agitated, “A” goes into a fast beta state, which causes “B”’s electric shocks to increase in intensity. “B”’s mental state affects “A” in the same way. This way, the mental state of each participant is responsible for the suffering of the other.

Technical details and specifications are available upon request