Wave UFO

Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO, 2003, is an immersive installation that encases viewers in a droplet-shaped UFO-cyber-pod and accesses viewers’ state of mind to control orbs of colour projected like thought-forms on the ceiling. Computer graphics involving orb shapes are combined with viewers’ alpha, beta and theta brainwaves. Mori taps into the realms of psychical research and UFOlogy visible in movie and media obsessions with telepathy and mind control. Different mental states resulted in different orbs projected on the ceiling of the UFO. Agitated beta thoughts turned into elliptical orbs of red, wakeful relaxation theta turned them blue, and a dreamlike alpha state turned them blue. If all three visitors to the UFO produced brainwaves on the same wavelength a ring of smaller orbs, what Mori refers to as ‘coherence spheres’ would light up together, and apparently this was not really often achieved. Mori’s concept of ‘coherence’ is similar to the concept of brain synchronicity explored more recently by Marina Abramovic Institute’s Science Chamber and the neuroscientist Suzanne Dikker.