HoMy Self!

Horácio Tomé Marques {1 May 1960}

• Researcher in Digital Media* {already PhD, but everlasting curious (and) student}, by University of Porto, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Program UT Austin Portugal;
• Teacher at College of Media Arts and Design, ESMAD;
• Designer, Graphic and Communication, by Faculdade de Belas-Artes, University os Porto;
• Creative and Art Director at iFuturo and MuARTs};
• Author {mostly co-author…};
• Visual Artist {“Look ma, No Hands!!!”… Look ma, With Hands!!!};
• Musician {guitar, fingerstyle… Hear ma, With Hands!!!}.
›› Please read HoMy Why!…
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* My thesis: Music, Reason and/or Emotion – Contributions to the interactive real-time representation of brain behaviors in the context of artistic practice via the EEG / BCI, area of Audiovisual and Interactive Content Creation.

It was a practice-based research which I worked for many years. It followed a dual framework:
›› An empirical scientific approach: where, with the help of colleagues from neurosciences, I researched on eeg, brain-waves, emotions, cognition and volition, possible decoding of those of those reactions, processes and actions, and its potential instrumental use;
›› An artistic approach: instrumental use of eeg correlated with emotions an volition for the creation, characterization and control of artistic audiovisual and interactive content. My concerns and artworks, e.g., visuals, sound, were not only anchored in the empirical decoding of the processes occurring in the brain in ecological performative arts contexts and its use to create and control multimedia art, but also a critical insight on representations, class assumptions and positions, within a broader human behaviour ecology.

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Interests on:

• Music, drawing, painting, dance, theatre;
• Acoustics, psycho-acoustics, sound synthesis, sound decoding;
• Oscillators, harmonic oscillators, oscillations, driven oscillations, synchronization, driven synchronization, phase-lock, resonance, synergy potentiation;
• Human potentials –bio electrical, specially brain— generated in various contexts and various art practices;
• 3D and 2D digital image synthesis, virtual and immersive audio visual environments, multimedia technologies.
• Impact of digital media and computer technologies in humans;
• Relationships and interactions between humans and machines;
• Study & play: traditions, new-directions {written and improvised} ; ear & study: classical, jazz;

• Planet, universe, energy;
• Life phenomena and meaning.

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›› Co-founder and former Art Director of iFuturo.net, a company (not active anymore) dedicated to communication design and advanced interactive multimedia — e.g. virtual visualization, virtual presence, interactive panoramic photography and video — with special focus on the needs of heritage dissemination and promotion,  museology and exhibitions (art and culture).

›› Co-founder and former co-director of Legato, Arte e Guitarra, a music culture association (activity suspended several years ago indefinitely) based on the North of Portugal, which promotes and organizes studies, concerts, festivals and other events on behalf of the Guitar (classical, contemporary, jazz, traditions and new approaches).

›› Co-founder and former Art Director of MuARTs, a transdisciplinary research project shared between two researchers of the PDMD  (FEUP – Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal | UT Austin, Texas, USA) that are pursuing projects where human emotional and rational phenomena are empirically studied via brain potentials analysis and two other researchers of the FPCEUP (Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of Porto University) that pursue similar projects on their specific scientific fields. The group μARTs — from μ (read mu) wave  (a specific brain wave) — designs and produces scientific and artistic projects and experiences aiming at answering specific questions of each researcher project(s), but in an broader, transversal, transdisciplinary and integrative form and purpose.

›› Insider of the collective Inside Music Machine. A shared project with three colleagues — two professional musicians and one engineer, also researcher at FEUP – Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The project pursues a performative original model that combines music, performative act and the thermic and electric potential of the human body generated during — and as an outcome of — the performative act (Inside Music Machine : The Outside, The Inside and The Music). It brings to the stage the scientific tools (and the laboratory) used for research – e.g., thermography camera (IR), brain-computer interface (BCI/EEG). Proposes to explore the representation and amplification (e.g., visualization) of those human phenomena in an artistic way but based on the use of the potentials, either metaphorically sometimes literally with the ultimate aim of generate, produce and perform original art.

›› Long time member of GESTO, a cooperative established in 1998 (activity suspended several years ago indefinitely) that has become one of the most iconic art and culture interventionist projects in Porto (for more than 25 years). Gesto was behind hundreds of exhibitions, fairs and art auctions, concerts, etc., always based on a strong relationship with the academy, with the city, with other national and international associations, with renowned artists and also young and emergent ones. Gesto was at the origin of movements such as Identidades, with promotes and creates intercultural initiatives with Portuguese-speaking countries.

›› Co-founder and board member of APNF – Associação Portuguesa de Neurofeedback e Neurotecnologia the portuguese association for the promotion and/of dissemination of science – theories, research and practices — within the scope of neurofeedback and neurotechnology innovation. It also aims to facilitate the organization of a network of technicians who might be interested in those areas of knowledge and activity, such as clinical applications, and might also support programs of r&d and investment.

{this page is updated time-to-time: last update › April, 08, 2020}