Evan Grant: Making sound visible through cymatics

ABOUT THIS TALK

Evan Grant demonstrates the science and art of cymatics, a process for making soundwaves visible. Useful for analyzing complex sounds (like dolphin calls), it also makes complex and beautiful designs.

I'm a creative technologist and the focus of my work is on public installations. And one of my driving passions is this idea of exploring nature, and trying to find hidden data within nature. And it seems to me that there is this latent potential everywhere, all around us. Everything gives out some kind of data, whether it's sound or smell or vibration. And through my work I've been trying to find ways to harness and unveil this. And so, this basically lead me to a subject called cymatics. Now, cymatics is the process of visualizing sound by basically vibrating a medium such as sand or water, as you can see there.

So, if we have a quick look at the history of cymatics beginning with the observations of resonance, by Da Vinci, Galileo, the English scientist Robert Hook, and then Ernest Chladni. And he created and experiment using a metal plate, covering it with sand, and then bowing it, to create the Chladni patterns that you see here on the right.

Moving on from this, the next person to explore this field was a gentleman called Hans Jenny in the 1970s. And he actually coined the term cymatics. And then bringing us into the present day is a fellow collaborator of mine, and cymatics expert, John Stewart Reed. And he's kindly recreated for us the Chladni experiment. What we can see here is the metal sheet, this time connected to a sound driver, and being fed by a frequency generator. And as the frequencies increase, so do the complexities of the patterns that appear on the plate. As you can see with your own eyes. (Applause)

So, what excites me about cymatics? Well for me, cymatics is an almost magical tool. It's like a looking glass into a hidden world. And through the numerous ways that we can apply cymatics we can actually start to unveil the substance of things not seen. Devices like the cymascope, which you can see here, have been used to scientifically observe cymatic patterns. And the list of scientific applications is growing every day.

For example, in oceanography, a lexicon of dolphin language is actually being created by basically visualizing the sonar beams that the dolphins emit. And hopefully in the future we'll be able to gain some deeper understanding of how they communicate. We can also use cymatics for healing and education. This is an installation developed with school children. Where their hands are tracked. And it allows them to control and position cymatic patterns and the reflections that are caused by them. We can also use cymatics as a beautiful natural art form.

This image here is created from a snippet of Beethoven's ninth symphony playing through a cymatic device. So it kind of flips things on it's head a little bit. And this is Pink Floyd's "Machine" playing in real time through the cymascope. We can also use cymatics as a looking glass into nature. And we can actually recreate the archetypal forms of nature. So for example, here on the left we can see a snowflake as it would appear in nature. And then on the right we can see a cymatically created snowflake. And here is a starfish and a cymatic starfish. And there is thousands of these.

So what does this all mean? Well, there is still a lot to explore. And it's early days. And there is not many people working in this field. But consider for a moment that sound does have form. And we've seen that it can affect matter and cause form within matter. Then sort of take a leap and think about the universe forming. And think about the immense sound of the universe forming. And if we kind of ponder on that then perhaps cymatics had an influence on the formation of the universe itself.

And here is some eye candy for you, from a range of DIY scientists and artists from all over the globe. And cymatics is accessible to everybody. And I want to urge everybody here to apply your passion, your knowledge and your skills to areas like cymatics. And I think collectively we can build a global community. We can inspire each other. And we can evolve this exploration of the substance of things not seen. Thank you. (Applause)


我是個極富創意的技術人員 而我工作的重點是在公共建設上 探索自然 並且發現隱藏在自然界中的資訊 是我的工作的動力來源 對我來說 這些隱藏的資訊充滿了我們身邊週遭的每一吋 萬物皆傳達了某種資訊給我們 不管是以聲音 味道 甚或以震動的方式 而我已經不斷地嘗試 在我的作品中利用它以及將它公諸於世 最後 我發現了 ˙一種叫cymatics的東西 cymatics 是一種使聲音看的見的技術 基本上就是藉由震動一些沙子或水 就如同你現在所見到的

如果我們大概了解一下cymatics的歷史 共振的觀察 始於達文西 伽利略以及英國科學家羅伯特·虎克 之後是恩斯特·克拉德尼 他並且開創了一種使用金屬板的實驗 先以沙子覆蓋板子 然後彎曲它 接著你會看到如右測顯示的克拉德尼圖形

受此啟發 在他之後 下一個在這個領域研究的人 是在一九七零年代一名叫做 漢斯·貞尼的紳士 並且 他發明了cymatics 這個名詞 而帶領我們進入了今日cymatics領域的人 是一個我的合夥研究人 cymatics方面的專家 約翰·史堤華得·理德 他很好心的為我們再現了 克拉德尼實驗 我們在這裡可以看到 一個與發聲器相連的金屬薄板 隨著發聲器產生振動 隨著頻率的增高 就如同你雙眼所見 薄板上的圖案也變的更加複雜 (鼓掌聲)

那麼 究竟是什麼使我這麼熱中於cymatics呢? 對我來說 cymatics根本就是一種通滿魔法的工具 就像是由水晶球窺探未知的世界般 雖然可以藉由各式各樣的方法來應用cymatics這項技術 但我們可以從揭開我們未見過的物質開始下手 就如你現在所看到 這樣像cymascope的儀器 已經被用來觀察cymatic所產生的圖形 而這項科學技術的應用 也與日俱增

例如在海洋學中 我們僅透過觀察海豚發出聲納的圖形 便發現到海豚使用的語言字彙正不斷增加當中 期望在未來我們能對他們溝通的方式 有更多更深的了解 我們亦能將cymatics技術應用再醫療以及教育上 這是一項學生使用的儀器 它能追蹤學生的手掌 並且能讓學生們能夠控制cymatics圖案 以及他們創造出來的反應 我們也能夠將cymatics看成一種自然的藝術形態

以下的這個畫面是藉由演奏 貝多芬第九交響曲片段所產生的 它有點像是在大腦內翻轉一樣 而接下來的這個是藉由cymascope 來播放Pink Floyd的 "Machine" 我們也能將cymatics當作是一項窺探大自然的方法 事實上我們也能重建自然的一些圖案 例如 左邊是在自然環境中可以看到的雪花 接著 右邊是藉由cymatics所創到的雪花形圖案 這是個海星以及由cymatic創造的海星 還有更多類似這樣的東西

所以這究竟意味著甚麼呢? 其實 還有很多值得我們去探索的空間 這項技術才剛開始發展 並沒有很多人在從事這方面的研究 但想想 聲音確實有它所具有的圖像 我們已經看到了她改變以形成成了很多事物 我們放遠一點去看 想想看 宇宙形成初期的聲音次怎樣 如果我們仔細的去想想 或許cymatics也對宇宙的形成造成了一些影響

然後這些是一些讓你們開開眼界的東西 從全球的一些 DIY科學家或是藝術家 cymatics就在我們身邊周遭 我想要鼓勵在做的各位 運用你們的熱情 你們的知識 你們的專業 奉獻在一些像cymatics這方面的領域 我們可以透過全體的努力來創造一個全球的溝通網 我們可以鼓勵彼此 我們能夠慢慢探索我們所未見到的物質 謝謝你們的聆聽 (鼓掌聲)