CYMATICS : ORDER OF CHAOS

Laurain Park, Interactive Arts + Humanistic Studies, 2022
Rhea Gupta, MA in Social Design, 2022

Laurain Park is an Interactive Arts undergraduate student and Rhea Gupta is a Social Design graduate student, working together to create Cymatics. They are both multidisciplinary designers who are interested in conjoining diverse areas of study to ultimately create a design that helps people or reveals inspiration.

Project Overview

In an exploration of multisensory art, Cymatics represents a sound box that intakes raw sound input and translates the auditory experience of music to its visual form. Inspired by physicist Ernst Chladni, the tool represents the intersection of music and physics to surpass sensory boundaries.

Due to its nature, the visual output is unpredictable and experimental. The varying complexity of music is represented by the dancing salt particles that absorb musical vibrations as a form of energy. This phenomenon may be harnessed to create a kaleidoscopic effect or be served as a medium to channel audible experience to a visual experience.

Process

From small scale to the final product, numerous trials and errors took place to ensure that the wiring connection for Cymatics was functioning. We have scavenged thrift shops for old speakers and dissected old machines for parts. The initial prototype simply included a small speaker, a metal sheet, and a few pieces of tape holding everything together. After learning that the prototype worked, we acquired bigger speakers and amps, soldered them together, and created the final product. The enclosure was then drafted accordingly with the final dimensions of the product to provide the optimal experience for viewing.