Concordia student collaborates with Australian neuroscientist to create music based on raw emotions

What does anger sound like? What music does sorrow imply? Human emotion is being given a new soundtrack thanks to an exciting new collaboration between art and neuroscience.

Concordia University researcher Erin Gee is taking feelings to a new level by tapping directly into the human brain, delivering music powered purely by the human body and its emotions. Using data collected from physiological displays of emotion, Gee is creating a software and hardware system that incorporates a set of experimental musical instruments that will perform a symphony of sentiments.

This research could have significant therapeutic benefits for those who have difficulty expressing emotion. Individuals with autism disorders, for example, often struggle to understand the emotions of others. Gee’s robotic technology could be used to teach them how to identify feelings by externalising and exaggerating them into such forms as music.