Creating reflective spaces with Nora Gibson
In this interview, Nora Gibson discusses her interactive installation called 'the dream'. Participants in 'the dream' wear EEG headsets to animate a particle system that is projected onto translucent screens in a room bathed in pale blue light. Nora’s background is in contemporary ballet and choreography. During the conversation some of the topics that are explored are interactive works as a way of providing feedback to participants, the interconnectedness between audience members, as well as how interactive works are systems for people to experience. 'the dream' has recently been featured in Ars Electronica.
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Highlights
- (0:00:00) Choreography vs interactive installations
- (0:02:20) Description of ‘the dream’ installation
- (0:06:25) Audience response to ‘the dream’
- (0:08:29) Core ideas explored in the piece
- (0:11:00) Personal reflection and enrichment in creating the installation
- (0:14:03) Art as a tool for learning and growth
- (0:15:00) Transition from ballet to installation practice
- (0:17:49) Using participants' bodies in the installation
- (0:18:07) Shifting focus from the performer to the experience
- (0:18:49) Redefining virtuosity in coding and conveying messages effectively
- (0:20:32) Process of creating ‘the dream’ piece and experimenting with visuals
- (0:22:25) Using organic and natural visuals in the piece
- (0:23:58) Embracing recycled ideas and having a unique message
- (0:24:37) Differences between creating an interactive installation and choreographing
- (0:27:30) Finding freedom and a different perspective through interactive work
- (0:27:33) Augmenting the experience with sound and live experimentation
- (0:30:19 ) Advice for others: Use tools to communicate your message effectively
About Nora Gibson
Nora Gibson trained in ballet at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where she studied under renowned mentors including Sylvester Campbell of the Dutch National Ballet. Nora further honed her skills at Chautauqua and NCSA, and earned a BFA from Tisch at NYU. She has danced for multiple companies including the Ellicott City Ballet Guild, PATH Dance Company, ClancyWorks Dance, and Andrew Marcus Dance, and has collaborated with iconic choreographer Lucinda Childs.
For a decade, Nora led the Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet, a Philadelphia-based contemporary ballet company. She gained critical acclaim and presented her work at prestigious venues such as the Franklin Institute. This included discussing her groundbreaking dome ballet, MANDALA, at the TouchDesigner summit at MUTEK in Montreal in 2018.
As an educator, Nora has designed courses that range from ballet to digital art, and has taught at institutions such as Temple University and the University of the Arts. She received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2018 for her work at Temple University.
Nora has transitioned from choreography to digital practice. Her digital creations have been featured at international platforms such as Ars Electronica and the Hexagram Network, Online Global Gallery, Contemporary & Digital Art Fair, Lightbox, and Urban Screens Production.
Links from the podcast
Edited transcript of Creating reflective spaces with Nora Gibson
Introduction to *The Dream*: An immersive EEG installation
Robin Petterd: What's it like to experience The Dream?
Nora Gibson: The Dream is an interactive piece—an atmosphere, really. It’s designed to help people connect with themselves both mentally and physically. It’s a space where your mind and body create a sense of repose not only for yourself but also for others.
Nora Gibson: When you enter, you’ll see multiple translucent screens that appear to float. They’re suspended from plexiglass rods, creating an ethereal structure at the centre of the room. The lighting is ambient, a soft pale blue. There’s comfortable seating, and a small EEG headset you can wear. This sensor reads the electrical activity in your brain.
Nora Gibson: Once the headset is on, you sit back and watch the particle system projected onto those translucent screens. Your brain activity animates these particles. You’re reclining, bathed in blue light, gazing at your own neural rhythms in motion. It’s a feedback loop—your brain activity visualised in real-time.
Using brain activity to drive interactive art
Nora Gibson: The experience is intentionally minimal and non-didactic. It’s not about provoking thought—it’s about allowing people to relax deeply. As you sink into the experience, your own body and mind create this calming environment for others as well. Even if someone isn’t wearing the headset, they’re still drawn into the experience. Their bodies, their presence, become part of that shared atmosphere.
Nora Gibson: It’s a manifestation of how our internal states can affect others in shared spaces. We bring energy into a room, and that has value. This is a caretaking experience—one of light, particles, and repose. It’s about self-observation and acknowledging how we influence others just by being present. I wanted to celebrate that kind of mental and physical state.
Creating calm and rest through artistic biofeedback
Robin Petterd: What are some of the words people use after experiencing it?
Nora Gibson: The most common thing I hear is, “I could sit here forever.” I take that as the highest compliment. I want people to enjoy a moment where they don’t feel pressured to do anything—where it’s enough just to pause and be.
Robin Petterd: It sounds like it helps people return to a kind of default state.
Nora Gibson: Yes—and hopefully a positive one. Our brain’s default mode network often triggers negative thinking: mind-wandering, catastrophising. But this experience is about watching your brain in action and receiving that as input. The feedback loop helps quiet those racing thoughts.
Nora Gibson on embodiment, mind, and environmental influence
Robin Petterd: What are the core ideas you’re exploring in this piece?
Nora Gibson: First, the undervalued importance of rest and repose. In capitalist cultures, we often say things like, “I’ll rest when I die.” But sleep and dreaming are deeply restorative. They support neuronal pruning, metabolism, the immune system. Dreaming helps consolidate memory and may even help us build predictive models of reality.
Nora Gibson: This installation is a celebration of that kind of mental processing. It places value on it. And it uses the participant’s own body as a conduit—not just for personal experience, but as a way of facilitating that calm for others too. I wanted the experience to be interactive, visually calming, minimal, and lovely. And for people to use their own presence to shape it.
The transition from dancer to media installation artist
Robin Petterd: That links with your own journey. You started by using the brain sensor yourself as a dancer. Was this piece partly born out of those experiences?
Nora Gibson: Absolutely. I’ve spent my life as a dancer. I’ve always seen the mind and body as collaborators—not as dualistic entities. And I see them in relation to other people and the environment.
Nora Gibson: When I shifted my practice toward technology, I became interested in how the brain and body shape our sense of mind. I studied my own patterns, did neuroscience research, interned in a lab. Eventually, I realised that this could become a shared experience—one person could be the conduit for others. And in many ways, we do this for each other all the time.
Robin Petterd: That resonates. Sometimes I ask myself if I’m making a piece for an audience or for self-reflection.
Nora Gibson: If you’re a lifelong learner and artist, your art becomes a tool for discovery. Of course, sharing work matters—we live in community—but creating is also about learning and growing ourselves.
Developing visuals with particle systems and EEG data
Robin Petterd: Why did you shift from dance to installation?
Nora Gibson: I was trained in ballet and ran a contemporary ballet company for ten years. But I always treated ballet as a language—an empty container to explore contemporary ideas.
Nora Gibson: I started collaborating with scientists and electronic musicians, and one project with a mechanical engineer used accelerometers to track dancers’ movements. We made choreography based on the patterns we saw in the data. Working with tech in those ways inspired me to step into that role myself.
Nora Gibson: Eventually, technology became a medium that felt like magic. It changed me. I still engage my body—especially through sensors—but now I work more with installation and new media.
Embracing unpredictability in interactive art systems
Robin Petterd: In The Dream, you're shifting from dancers’ bodies to audience bodies. That’s a big change.
Nora Gibson: It is. As I moved from performing to choreographing, I no longer needed to be at the centre. I became more focused on the experience itself.
Nora Gibson: My concept of virtuosity shifted, too. It’s not about being the best coder. It’s about clearly expressing a philosophical idea. Using whatever tools help communicate that, as beautifully and precisely as possible—that’s my idea of virtuosity now.
Robin Petterd: And now you’re working solo, rather than in collaborative performance contexts.
Nora Gibson: Yes. Though I’d love to collaborate more again. I used to work with scientists, musicians, and other artists. I still hope to do that going forward.
Sound experiments and visual feedback loops
Robin Petterd: Let’s come back to The Dream. How did the piece evolve?
Nora Gibson: It grew naturally from observing my own brain activity. As a dancer, I’m deeply aware that movement is life. I began experimenting with how visuals could reflect brain signals.
Nora Gibson: Eventually, I chose a particle system. It has a physics effect that makes it feel organic—like water splashing. That natural aesthetic was important to me. I didn’t want it to feel cold or overly technological. It’s like artificial nature.
Robin Petterd: Particles can be overused—but here it feels like a considered choice.
Nora Gibson: I think there are no bad ideas—only unconsidered ones. We have a rich history to draw from. The key is having something unique to say with the tools you use.
Advice for artists entering tech-based installation work
Robin Petterd: How different is it to choreographing a dance?
Nora Gibson: It’s completely different. My choreography was highly designed—no improvisation. But with interactive work, you have to let go. You create a system, but the outcome isn’t fully under your control.
Nora Gibson: That resonates with ideas I’ve been exploring around free will—how much do we actually control in life? So I focus on creating frameworks that facilitate an experience, and then I let the participant engage with it on their own terms.
Robin Petterd: That sounds like freedom from ballet in a way.
Nora Gibson: Or maybe just seeing life differently.
Robin Petterd: What are you working on now?
Nora Gibson: I’m augmenting the experience by adding sound. I convert my brain data to MIDI and sculpt sound from that. So the motifs are generated by my body, then shaped by me.
Nora Gibson: It’s a strange thing—I’m both subject and object. I'm also experimenting with modular synthesis to sculpt sound live, in real time, using the sensor.
Robin Petterd: That’s a great bit of experimentation.
Nora Gibson: I’m also trying to make the brain-visual link more poetic—so participants can be more aware of how their brain activity is shaping the experience. It becomes a more pointed, self-reflective conversation.
Robin Petterd: More agency for the participant?
Nora Gibson: Yes—or more self-knowledge.
Robin Petterd: What advice would you give to others thinking of doing similar work?
Nora Gibson: You are a creative being. Don’t worry about your technical background. If you want to use today’s tools, just start.
Nora Gibson: I came from a dance studio—I didn’t own a computer for years. But I learned what I needed to. These tools have helped me grow and communicate better. You don’t have to be the best programmer—just precise in what you want to say, and true to your aesthetic.
Nora Gibson: And remember, the learning never ends. That’s a lifelong journey. Don’t be intimidated if you’re just starting out.
Final reflections on learning and artistic growth
Robin Petterd: Thank you. That’s a lovely wrap up.
Nora Gibson: Thank you.
Robin Petterd: As I edited this conversation, a few key things stood out. Interactive experiences can serve as powerful feedback loops. David Rokeby refers to these as “transforming mirrors.”
Robin Petterd: What’s compelling about Nora’s work is how layered the experience is—there’s the participant with the headset, and then others who engage through proximity and presence.
Robin Petterd: Another key insight is that we don’t need to fully control interactive systems. As artists, it’s more important to know what we want to achieve—and to use the tools to do just that.