Brain waves are also art...Brain waves measured while looking at the subway are sold for 130,000 won

Jul 07, 2025

Photo source=코넬

A Japanese company is making headlines by sublimating people's brainwaves into art. The company is even exhibiting and selling brain waves by making art.

According to Hong Kong media South China Morning Post, Cornell, a multinational creative company in Tokyo, Japan, is drawing attention with its unique attempt to collect people's brainwaves, convert them into works of art, and sell them.

The company operates a 'BWTC (Brain Wave Trading Center) metaverse store' with the phrase 'Buying Brainwaves' at the forefront, capturing visitors' thoughts and feelings and expressing them as visual arts.

Visitors wear special devices at the store and measure brain waves for about 100 seconds. This data is immediately converted into digital art, and participants will be rewarded with 1,000 yen (about 9,400 won).

The company explained that it is "opening a new horizon of creation in that human thoughts and emotions can be sublimated into unique visual art beyond simple brainwave graphs.".

The works produced are priced according to the aesthetic value of the appearance, the uniqueness of the data, and the mental state at the time of measurement.

For example, the participant's work, which measured brain waves while watching a tram (lightweight subway) video, was set at 13,900 yen (about 130,000 won), and the participant's work, which focused on food, was set at 7,810 yen (about 74,000 won).

The store has also held pop-up events in hotels and exhibition halls in various parts of Japan and Taiwan, displaying works through online galleries and releasing daily brainwave collection status in real time.

Participants' responses are also positive. Some are participating in teams with friends and family, comparing each other's brainwave artworks, and experiencing the value of the mind.

One participant said "My brain waves may not have much value, but the experience of my thoughts being a work itself was new."

The company plans to display the collected EEG works in the future and introduce them to the art market in earnest. It is also analyzing how various mental states such as reading, concentration, meditation, and emotion affect the aesthetics and price of the work.

Brain waves, which were previously used for scientific analysis, are now combining with art to create new value, and experiments on this are expected to continue in the future.