Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Water Drawings of Invisible Things


I have come across two projects that use water as a medium for visualizing what is invisible: in this case, soundwaves and brainwaves. In the work of Nigel Stanford, Cymatics [the study of visible sound] auditory compositions are translated into visual geometric patterns moving in water. In Lisa Park's project, Eunioa [beautiful thinking], her brainwaves are translated into sound vibrations also reverberating as water patterns, changing and moving as her thoughts transform. Her project is of particular interest in the topic of CiTy SCAN [the intricate relationship between the human body and the city body]. To bring the scale of the city to this, I recall Siegfried Kracauer as he described the memory of the first film that he saw; "What thrilled me so deeply was an ordinary suburban street. Filled with lights and shadows, which transfigured it. Several trees stood about and there was in the foreground a puddle reflecting invisible house facades and a piece of sky. Then a breeze moved the shadows, and the facades with the sky below began to waver."

top image: still from Lisa Park's video Eunioa
bottom image: still from Nigel Stanford's video Cymatics