How a dancer with ALS used brainwaves to perform live

Re:How a dancer with ALS used brainwaves to perform live by usui on Sunday April 12, 2026 @03:16AM (#47736920)

The featured video does not explain how it uses signals to produce which outcomes and they basically just say "we use machine learning while outputting a dance". At 07:10 it looks like the person chooses between two binary options of "sad" and "relieved". Unfortunately I doubt the person has anywhere near the real-time input to the performance as much as it is implied. Dentsu is also an advertisng agency in Japan, so it seems like this is more marketing than it is technical.

Dances by physical humans are always choreographed beforehand but live performances always show physical motion that can interrupt or change to unchoreographed movement at any time. I have a hard time believing that this person's brainwaves are mapping and producing the hologram in a specific 3D space, other than instructing it which mood preset to use at a given time.

Excluding the marketing of the ALS story, I guess I'm wondering how it's different from a Michael Jackson hologram performance where someone could adjust the sliders for mathematical functions live?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How a dancer with ALS used brainwaves to perform live by EEBio on Sunday April 12, 2026 @03:32AM (#47736974)

I am pretty sure you’re right, they are probably recording alpha waves, possibly combined with heart rate.

Decoding limb joint movements from EEG scalp recordings is basically an unsolved problem (we can barely do it in lab with implants), I doubt an advertising company has cracked it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How a dancer with ALS used brainwaves to perform live by laxpri on Sunday April 12, 2026 @04:01AM (#47737147)

what do you mean by alpha waves , is there any good article ...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How a dancer with ALS used brainwaves to perform live by maltelau on Sunday April 12, 2026 @11:46AM (#47741087)

Alpha waves refer to the measurable 8-12Hz waves in the electromagnetic field coming out of the human head. They are the clearest "signal" we can read out with eeg ("electro" "encephalo" (brain) "graphy") and usually peak in power over the back of your head.

They are also by far the biggest (measurable) eeg signal change you can manipulate intentionally (other than motion artifacts). Closing your eyes or focusing your attention inwards reduce the power of those oscillations so much it's visible right away just looking with your eyes at the signal trace.

It would be very straightforward to program in decision points to the light show where someone can select an option by tuning their attention inwards or outwards.

TLDR: It's the "press X to doubt" of human-computer interfaces.

[ Parent | on HN ]