Visualizing Sound Waves: Complex Media Art and Chladni Patterns
Viola Rühse, Anca-Simona Horvath · VBN Forskningsportal (Aalborg Universitet) · 2022
In a time of almost uncountable ways of digital sound visualizations, an interest in the early analog sound visualizations has revived. Mechanical images of sound waves were used by Björk and Nigel Stanford in music videos and also inspired other cultural areas such as design and media art. In our paper, we compare two media artworks from the 2000s with a sound performance from the early 1970s. All selected artworks are inspired by Ernst Florens Friedrich Cladni’s experiments from the 18th century, but using contemporary technologies. There are several studies of single artworks using Chladni patterns but a comparative analysis with an interdisciplinary image science method is still missing. Such an approach is enlightening in terms of the histories of art, aesthetics, culture, and media because different contemporary art currents and theoretical aspects are represented in the selected works dealing with Chladni patterns. Alvin Lucier created his performance The Queen of the South in 1972. A video circuit projection depicts Chladni patterns from acoustic and electronic instruments. The piece was influenced by Lucier’s interest in alchemy and shows some historical parallels to the ideas of German Romantics who were fascinated by Chladni’s experiments. In 2000, Carsten Nicolai experimented with the effect of low-frequency sound on fluids. The distinctive abstract quality of the geometric white waves in his photo series Milch (Milk) inspired several works by Gerhard Richter in 2004 (Abstraktes Bild (Haut) I / II, and the editions Haut I & Haut II). Roland Maurmair used a participatory and bio-art approach in his installation Bärlappfeldgenerator (Club Moss Field Generator, 2005) with club moss spores on a membrane. The visitors could create sound wave images with their voices. Maurmair was especially interested in the special symbolism of the seedless plants that were used by Michael Faraday for sound wave experiments before.In the last years, advanced computer simulations and plotting technologies allow the creation of 3D Chladni patterns. At the end of our paper, we discuss the application possibilities that these sculptural objects provide for vocal and voice therapy. For developing our own experiment set-up and the 3D prototypes, the technical solutions used in the formerly discussed media artworks were very helpful. In addition, we take a critical account of the symbolic and esoteric connotations of Chladni patterns and ideas of the unity of the arts that are also influential for these artworks and representative of the complexity of media art in general. Furthermore, the difficulties that occurred while using them as voice visualizations and for vocal therapy in the 19th and 20th centuries are considered.