Gustav Metzger founded the auto-destructive art movement in the early 1950s, is famed for his political protests and challenging art, and has exhibited extensively worldwide. NULL OBJECT brings together Metzger and a multi-disciplinary team combining unique perspectives on computing art and engineering. These different perspectives will be fused through a poetic application of technology connecting a brain-machine interface, via computers and bespoke software, to an industrial manufacturing robot in the production of an art object. For this project, a number of people were invited to look at a series of stereographic imagery while having EEG recordings made of their brainwave responses. NULL OBJECT focuses on the readings from Gustav Metzger's EEGs images while thinking about nothing. His brainwave responses were translated into instructions for a manufacturing robot to carve out the void in the block of stone. Artists have used computer and scientific technology in a variety of ways for the production of plastic art from the late 1950s onwards. NULL OBJECT offers an alternative model for a creative, non-invasive between body, mind and machine. AUTHOR: Jo Joelson and Bruce Gilchrist's work has been featured in a number of recent publications including: Far Field: digital culture climate change and the poles; My Green City: Back to Nature with Attitude and Style; Searching for Arts New Publics; ART+SCIENCE NOW, a visual survey of artists working at the frontiers of science and technology; Beyond Architecture Imaginative Buildings and Fictional Cities; London Fieldworks: Syzygy/Polaria. SELLING POINTS: ? NULL OBJECT is an intriguing publication exploring the project conceived by the collaborative arts practice London Fieldworks, founded by the artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson, and the internationally acclaimed artist Gustav Metzger. ? NULL OBJECT combines the application of technology and science in the production of an art object. ? The complex project proposal plays with the idea of augmented mind by responding to the development of brain-machine interfaces, biometrics and the burgeoning role of databases across all conceivable sectors of society, and offers an alternative model for a creative, non-invasive interface between body, mind and machine for the production of art. ILLUSTRATIONS 68 colour eb/w illustrations
