Resonance: A Journey Through Waves
This project is a special presentation. Headphones are recommended. For the best viewing experience, please watch the following digital piece first.
// A JOURNEY OF WAVES //
I chose the adjectives Chaos and Order for my assignment. I began my investigation into chaos by focusing on sound. I initially wanted to visualize something which can’t be seen by the naked eye. What would chaotic sound look like? As I continued working with these concepts, a unifying theme emerged in my work: waves. I moved from sound waves, to brain waves to literal ocean waves, all as part of my journey to create this work.
My first visuals come from my experimentation with a Chladni Plate. I provided an input frequency (HZ) using a frequency generator and then placed salt on the plate to visualize the vibration. I learned that certain frequencies produce visually stunning patterns. However, these same frequencies produce a very harsh and sharp tone. The dichotomy illustrates how order, which is beautiful, can be found amidst chaos and cacophony.
Personal chaos for me is sometimes felt in my own brain. I have ADHD and with it, hyper stimulation of my brain under certain conditions. I wanted to show the chaos of the ADHD brain, which is sometimes referred to as the “ring of fire”. The MRI in my video is of my own brain. The moving imagery timed to the rhythm of the music in this section of my work is meant to illustrate how it feels inside my head when I’m experiencing hyperstimulation. MRIs generate their imagery through the use of electromagnetic waves. Hence, another example where waves helped visualize the unseen.
I looked to nature to find chaos and order and drew inspiration from a hurricane. Only mother nature can produce waves in such a violent yet captivatingly beautiful way. At the center of the storm, lies the eye. At this point, everything inside of this calm and peaceful space is surrounded by a chaotic cloud.
I generated my hurricane and other visual effects by utilizing 3D particle software. For music, I selected “Hurricane”, by Kanye West and The Weeknd as well as “Let It Happen”, by Tame Impala, due to the nature of its composition. “Let It Happen” to be from the album titled “Currents”, which seemed fitting.
Throughout all of my imagery, you will note that I also added a visualization of the Golden Ratio, derived from the Fibonnaci sequence. This is a mathematical phenomena that has been observed in nature; there is a ratio of 1.618 present in many things. While the ratio is not explicitly present in the images, I wanted to convey the order of this “divine proportion” as a reminder that nature bestows her own order upon us. Again, something that can’t be visualized, but is present.
For the final images in my work, I chose the specific frequency of my birth year on the Chladni plate (2003 HZ). I took the sand patterns from the plate and modeled them in a 3D program: Rhino, where I then extruded the lines to get to an outline of a structure. I then built this structure, a pavilion, into a final and encompassing piece. I titled the piece ‘Resonance’, connecting sound to structure.
