Jason Reif has been taking photos with his mind. He has been using waves in his brain to operate a remote camera and create digital art.

Jason is profoundly disabled. He has been testing the Cyberlink hardware as part of a project to harness the creative powers of disabled people with cutting-edge technology.

Three artists, Malcom Buchanan-Dick, of Shoreham, Hastings-based Kate Adams and David Prytherch, of Stourbridge, have worked with six young people who have complex disabilities over the last ten months at the Chailey Heritage Centre, near Lewes.

The project is run by Brighton-based art centre Lighthouse and funded by the Arts Council of England.

Kate Adams explained: "The project was about trying to get them to do whatever they could. Our approach was about enabling."

This enabling meant drawing together computer arts technology and the devices normally used by disabled people for control and communication.

Kate and Malcom discovered the chin switch control used by many of the participants could be turned into a mouse.

Once plugged into a device known as a Tash, mouse moves let the participants control a cursor and begin to paint.

Students also moved track balls with their chins and operated joysticks.

Everything was connected to the computer to give them control over the artistic process.

Whole walls became computer screens using data projectors normally seen in conferences and seminars.

Kate said: "We wanted to enlarge the experience of being creative. Some of the students have sensory impairments."

When students, such as Terry Marshall, used traditional paints, they were filmed and their images were projected on to the walls, recreating and expanding their own art as they created it.

Most remarkable was the Cyberlink. Controlling computers with brainwaves sounds like science fiction but it worked for the Chailey students.

The Cyberlink detected alpha, beta and theta brain waves and tension in the face and used the signals to control a camera.

The technology was only being tested and is far from perfect but it was a remarkable experience for participants like Jason.

Malcom explained: "There is a quite a lot of equipment available but it's a case of finding ways of applying it and mixing technologies together."

The scheme at Chailey is coming to the end of its ten-month plan.

Jane Finnis, project director, is hoping to use what money remains to fund-raise and give the students permanent access to the technology at Chailey.

In the meantime, she hopes to win funding for another course.

It is all a long way from the traditional image of bringing art to disabled people where the paintbrush is often held by a teacher.

The Chailey project aimed to take away this hand and let disabled people draw and paint for themselves.

For many this was a new experience and it revealed talents which had never been properly recognised before.

Not being able to easily pick up a paintbrush or pencil meant the abilities of those with complex disabilities often went unexpressed and unnoticed.

Kate compared the typical experience of artists who are encouraged by teachers and peers in the school art room.

She said: "I'm not sure anybody has ever said to these students 'you're really good at art'.

"They haven't been able to paint a daffodil that looks like a daffodil."

The daffodil stumbling block has been an important one for Kate, Malcom and David.

They have had to encourage the students to recognise abstract work is as worthwhile as perfect portraits.

Kate said: "It's about the validity of what the participants can do.

"We wanted to say 'whatever you do is valid'."

Persuading students there is more to art than recreating what they see was familiar to Kate.

She said it was a lesson which cropped up just as regularly on the foundation art courses she had taught as it did at Chailey.

With the help of technology, the students at Chailey have been able to encounter the same satisfactions, frustrations and quandaries of anyone else who has experimented with art.

Kate said what they have achieved would not have been possible ten years ago.

But the demands of artistic work and the potential of new technology remain enticing.

She said: "If you are trying to be creative, you quickly reach the edges of what you can do."

The students' work will be exhibited at the University of Brighton Gallery, Grand Parade, from July 18 to July 29.