Braindance

A braindance, commonly abbreviated to BD, is a technology that allows to record and play back someone's experience, including their physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Braindances were invented by Yuriko Sujimoto in 2007, and were heavily used in psychological treatment. Braindances came to be used more commonly for entertainment, and enjoy wide use in the Cyberpunk world. Various devices have been developed in order to record, edit, and play back braindances, from recorders to viewers to wreaths.

Braindance in 2020
After the academic experiments that led Sujimoto to invent braindance technology, it was repurposed for criminal reconditioning and for military simulations with funding from the State of California and Militech. By 2009, with government contracts, Sujimoto and a penal psychologist called Lassimer founded Braindance Incorporated. Soon after, entertainment forms of braindance were released in a joint venture between Militech, Braindance Inc. and Diverse Media System (DMS). Public demand for braindance media grew, and DMS quickly cornered the market by developing "the world's premier editing facilities and the most extensive braindance chip distribution network". Other key manufacturers of braindance chips continued to be Braindance Inc. and Militech.

Braindance in 2077
For many Night City residents, crushing poverty and homelessness are significant and likely inescapable problems. Despite this, most are still entranced by the glitz of showbiz and luxurious lifestyles of the privileged elite. Breakthroughs in neural technology such as BD have paved the way for people to share recordings of their own emotions and personal memories. Other BD productions put actors in staged situations to create false memories. BDs that are simple recordings of a day in the life of the world's biggest and brightest stars are also popular. The ability to "become" a celeb and experience a life of luxury gives many a chance to escape their own miserable reality. As a result, braindance addiction has become an ever-growing problem for the city's poor.

Unedited BD recordings are called virtus in The Street. Unlike commercial BDs, the sensory input and emotions in a virtu are raw and unedited, essentially the real sensations and feelings that were recorded. It is common to record and sell virtus to BD editors so they can scroll these recordings for additional profit.

Illegal Braindance
Illicit BD recordings, also called Extreme Braindances (XBDs), feature gruesome and bizarre scenes, including violence, torture, and even rape and murder. XBDs are created by small teams who kidnap unwilling victims. Some XBDs are recorded from the perspective of the torturer. Other XBDs are from the perspective of the torturee: the virtus of these are often taken from the corpses of the victims. There is a market for both.

XBDs can be found easily in the seedy underbelly of Night City's black market, although sold through secretive dealers.

Database Entries (2077)
|-|Braindance=


 * -|Illegal Braindance=

Main Jobs

 * The Information
 * Disasterpiece

Side Jobs

 * Gig: Dirty Biz
 * Gig: Monster Hunt

Associated Shards (2077)

 * Braindance - Available Titles
 * Braindances - concepts
 * Relive.it - Braindance Quarterly

DMS' Role in the Origins of Braindance
Shortly before his death in 2009, Henry Wong of DMS recognized the potential of a whole new entertainment media. He organized the joint venture with Militech and Braindance Inc. (the inventors of the Braindance) to create and distribute a commercial chip, but he died before the first Braindance was available to the public. DMS makes Braindance chips in their LA facility and distributes them in the largest North American distribution network.

Inside the Studios
Compared to most of the other DMS studios, the Braindance studio is a lonely place. Once a Braindance has been recorded in raw format, it only takes an editor and a to cut it into distributable format. Most Of work comes before and during recording. First DMS has to decide what Braindances to record. Ideas can come from marketing or some other department, one their numerous writers, or from a Braindance recording artist. Then the Braindance studio teams the Braindance artist with a recording technical team leader and his assistants. They wire up the artist with the the neural feeds and start recording. Sometimes recordings can go on for days or much longer, with the artist only wiring up for the important sections. DMS doesn't like to admit it, but they often make use of professional actors and constructed scenery to enliven a Braindance recording. They would rather the buying public didn't know that they were experiencing a staged event, so they down play the staging in their advertising. The original entertainment Braindances were totally adlibbed, but any Braindance you see these days from DMS or another big corporation is scripted to some degree. While a recording session must be Spontaneous enough to excite the artist so that the emotions carry over well, the producers know that to make it play like a good story they have to add in standard plot elements, like the love interest, a major villain, etc.

To keep the spontaneous feel, the artist is usually not shown the full script, rather he is given guidelines to keep him within the story line. Because of this the script is not as detailed a movie script. The recording artist has no preplanned dialogue or concrete staging instructions. Often the dialogue for secondary characters will be prewritten to make sure they have something interesting to say at the moment of truth. Still, the heart of Braindance recording is spontaneity. Even at DMS large portions of a Braindance are left unscripted on purpose. And if something unplanned should interfere in a session, the motto is "never stop recording." The most memorable scenes happen completely by accident. When the original recording is completed it is handed over to the editor at the DMS studios. Modern editing decks are sophisticated affairs, with sensory gain controls to limit the amount of sensory input and automated kickout switches to detach the editor from dangerous events. Editor can mix and match different scenes. At DMS, they have developed a technique for overlaying stock sensory tracks on top of the original. Which means that when the recording artist is shot, the editor can substitute a pin-prick for the actual bullet wound. The idea is to entertain the Braindancer, not to hurt him so much he won't come back. The editor starts with the sensory effects detached. First he runs through the entire length, then begins sampling the sensory effects of various scenes. He uses the gain control to decide at what level to record the final sensory effects. A beating can be made to feel like a Swedish massage, or an orgasm like an H-bomb explosion. Once the editor has a finished hour of Braindance, he lays in stock sensory tracks where needed and calls it a day. Often DMS will make two or more versions of a Braindance and test market them before committing to a final version. They want to make sure that what they distribute will have the maximum market appeal. After the marketing department approves the final Braindance, it's recorded back to chip in final form, duplicated and packaged for distribution. Finally the advertising department designs the ad campaign for the new Braindance. When the ads are in place, the chip is released, and DMS sits back and rakes in the money. -->