With fMRI and ChatGPT, Close Encounters with Inner Aliens delves into our alien imaginings personally and collectively, applying guided meditation to both humans and AI. It visualizes aliens from human and artificial inner worlds through a liminal space, encouraging audiences to explore inner aliens and examine their biases toward the unknown.
For centuries, humans have been perceiving other worlds by imagining aliens, from zombies and Martians to other extraterrestrial beings. Gradually, these science fiction entities have gained an impact on our sociopolitical perceptions of otherness. But our imagination of aliens is largely based on projecting our own biases, emotions, and desires into the unknown. In other words, aliens begin within us. Even though the advancement of technology has disenchanted many imagined figures, our inner aliens have never ceased but evolved along with human nature. So why not turn the perspective around, and for once not look at the universe searching for the unknown, but investigate our internal aliens through a special mix of guided meditation, AI neural networks and cognitive neuroscience?

Delving into various interpretations of aliens, Close Encounters with Inner Aliens highlights how we visualize otherness by looking inside ourselves and pondering other worlds within. It merges spirituality and science to transform alien imagination into a mindfulness practice, challenging our stereotypes about aliens rooted in our imagination and perceptions. By conducting guided meditation about alien encounters with individuals and an AI, this project seeks to explore this internal phenomenon both personally and collectively. Analyzing fMRI scans of the early visual cortex, a region linked to mental imagery, we reconstruct individuals’ internal representations of aliens across various cultures, genders, and ages (Koide-Majima et al., 2024; Shen et al., 2019). Also, we examine how science fiction shapes our perceptions of aliens through ChatGPT and Midjourney, AIs that reflect our extensive collective knowledge and biases toward aliens.
By applying techniques from both neuroscience and computational modeling, this project creates a liminal space that visualizes aliens from the diverse minds of both humans and AIs. This outcome invites audiences to appreciate others’ inner aliens and introspect their cognitive bias of the unknown.

This work was produced in collaboration with the Predictive Brain Lab at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands and the MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Contributors to the project include F. de Lange, F. Bouwkamp, M. Ekman, A. Spaninks, V. McKenzie, R. Tsai, S. Chang, S. Yang. This project was supported by Bio Art & Design Award, MU Hybrid Art House, Predictive Brain Lab, and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior. More details and images from the work can be found at the artist’s website.

“Humans and ecosystems are of the same kin. Here, we portray the ecotones of the mind as latent morphologies, as hidden sources of life and abundance. In the beauty of the cyber poetics lie diffused entities reflecting new forms of reciprocal embodiment. May the mirror of nature guide us through the richness of our communion, embracing the responsibility and care of a loving relationship. May the soft cyclical beauty tend for our deep belonging, hopeful whispers of intuitive wisdom. Gratefulness will be our first step forward, in the rainforests of the mind, even when the chiaroscuro imprints our souls. And we will gather our compassionate bodies as one, with chimeras of the lands imagining the new shape of our heart.”
Ecotones of the mind explores symbiotic relationships that exist between humans and the natural world using neuroscientific, mathematical and digital art tools. Our proposal is inspired by the concept of ecotones: regions where distinct biological communities converge, creating a zone rich in biodiversity. The metaphorical interpretation of ecotones extends to the realm of human relationships with nature and other species, challenging traditional views on separation and individuality.
The artwork is divided into two parts. The first part represents the distinct transformations of two separate human beings, while the second part illustrates how the meeting of their bodies leads to the co-creation of new lifeforms, forming a new ecotone. In the former, the complexity of each person’s brain signals was used to guide a generative AI model in transforming their individual representations into abstract structures—systems of roots and corals. In the latter, a measure of brain coupling was used to guide the intensity of the morphing from their original human forms to a collective imagery of chimeric animals. This artistic process mirrors the ecological concept of ecotones, reflecting how individual lives intertwine and influence one another, fostering a biodiverse web of shared experiences and transformations.
Through the lens of ecotones, we are encouraged to reconsider our role within the larger ecological framework, highlighting the importance of community and reciprocity in transcending boundaries. As we observe our representations morph and merge, guided by the invisible link of our neural activities, we witness a digital metaphor for the continuous reshaping of our identities and connections. The beauty of shared creation emerges, a vivid testament to life’s complexity and our interconnected existence, ever reshaped by the shifting relationships of our synergistic bodies. The two humans depicted in the video are the co-creators of the artwork (Mar Estarellas, Antoine Bellemare).