Cymatics
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla
I recently became really interested in Cymatics which is the the visual representation of how sound can have a drastic effect on matter. This is demonstrated by a Vibrational device called a Chladni plate which can be made in a few different ways.
The device works by concentrating frequencies which is obsorbed by the surface of the plate. If you apply a fine material such as salt or sand the matter behaves in a very strange way. The substance used on the plates will react in a manor which creates different patterns dependant on what the frequency is.
Whilst looking into the study of Cymatics i found a few different examples which aren’t produced with a Chladni plate but are created by effecting water in a very unusual and drastic way.
Tibetan singing bowls are used for meditational purposes and resonate a frequency which has a holistic healing effect on the brain and the wave activity that is produced. Vibrational frequencies are everywhere and are what structures the universe and holds matter together so the fact that certain sounds can effect the human brain an imitate the pulsation of a heart beat is extremely interesting. You can call this type of understanding rubbish or fictitious but by visual seeing the matter being effected in such a drastic way is almost evidence that it is real and isn’t just a load of nonsense.
Another video I found of water behaving strange because of frequencies is one which almost seems to good to be true. The video shows a water hose directing the water in a parabolic curve, a frequency then being directed into the hose and the water behaving in a manor which seems to defy the laws of physics. This really makes me think that perhaps there are ways of bending physics and creating abnormalities to things we would typically called normalities.
“From a cymatic or vibratory standpoint, disharmony is disease. The critical concept to grasp here is that all manifestations of disease, whether diagnosed as “physiological” or “psychological,” result from disruption (in the form of toxicity or trauma) of the primary electromagnetic harmonies and rhythms contained in the auric fields and corresponding chakras … These bioenergy centers have an intimate relationship with DNA that gives them direct regulatory access to all cellular functions. Therefore, if we can find a way to reset our bioenergy blueprint through harmonic resonance, we can go directly to the root of disease processes.”
By studying these patterns you can almost look at it as a visual language of the different frequencies which I feel is extremely interesting and has great potential for becoming a finite piece for this project.
Cymatics is quite an uncommon thing to come across however I’m sure that at some point through ought your life you will have come across it as it seems to be quite something that crops up in religious architecture. Mandalic patterns are particularly common within churches and seem to be following a similar arrangement. During the summer I spent a few days in Venice and got the chance to go to St Mark’s Cathedral, whilst walking round I noticed similar patterns which seemed to be out of place and extremely unusual in a religious aspect.
I remember being round a friends quite a few years ago when he was showing me a video of perfectly acoustic church which had a plinth in the centre which has salt on and when a certain sound was made within the church you would get the same cymatic response as the chladni plate creates. This make me think that the level of understanding of this topic is something which was taken seriously throughout the uprising of different religions.
– Floor in St Mark’s Catherdral
Besides all of the examples that i’ve given being almost man made or interpreted, there are natural form of Cymatics such as how snowflakes are formed. Water drops will fall and freeze at a certain temperature at the same time frequencies will hit the freezing droplet causing it to form a totally unique mandalic form. This is interesting because of it being completely natural but seems to follow the same rules as the controlled experiment.
Light operates in a different manor to pigments and has it’s own frequency, similarly to the visual representation of the Cymatic experiments. These wave lengths of light are visible when passed through a prism, this spectrum of light includes red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (red at the bottom of the spectrum and violet at the top). Below red is known as infra red and above violet is known as ultra violet and beyond the boundaries of the spectrum are what is non visible to the human eye as we cannot process anything outside of this frequency range. This gives potential to bring a separate medium but bling me to keep a connection between the concept of using frequencies.
What is data?
Data is a progressing thing throughout our world and are encountered to it the second you are born by parents having to sign birth certificates to having to have a registered address to be signed up to a bank account. Not only are there many forms of data but there is a vast growing amount of it which is spread across the internet for anyone to realistically get their hands on and be able to find out some general information about yourself but people are also just willing nilly agreeing to target advertising which is bombarded at you at the touch of a button, whether you chose to ignore the noise of it or not target advertising is a large and growing way of appealing to the enormous amounts of materialistic people throughout western society.
These being the most obvious types of data which occur throughout todays western society (excluding the even more obvious forms of storing data, USB, hard drives, etc) the boundaries of data seems almost limitless when I and actually define what data is. This ranges from the electronical signals which are sent between neurotransmitters within your brain to the theory of quantic entanglement between quantic particles which hold the atoms of a table together.
Data is everywhere, you can’t escape it, even writing this is another form of which data is being produced the same as the mathematical equations used to program photoshop to create the operation which you command it to.
Is data at its earliest form of anything purely coding? Whilst looking into this concept I came across “Simulation theory” which obviously is the idea that we are living in a simulated reality. This theory originated from a theoretical physicist named Jim Gates who’s a professor at the University of Maryland, not only is he a professor but is also on council of advisors of science and technology for Barak Obama.
Gates found equations which are used to represent super symmetry and string theory (the operations of nature) through symbols which depict the same equations connected to these theories which are not only equations but make up the same binary code which are what we use to create major search engines or computer code. The very fact that he has collected data from the equations that physicists want to use to depict the fabric of the cosmos is extremely un comprehendible yet if he’s collected the data does that then mean it to be true? Yet he describes this as not only being computer code but being a special type of computer code which was created by a scientist of mathematics and electronically engineering named Claude Shannon in the 1940’s which you find deep in the equations of string theory and other which are also supersymmetric.
One of the images which Gates talks about the equations being depicted from.
Mathematics is depicted throughout nature within formations of patterns which seem to be repeated similarly to the equations within simulation theory, for example the Fibonacci sequence/Golden Ratio and Mandelbrot set also known as fractals. The fibonacci sequence especially is more well known and has been interpreted in many ways such as the mapping of the way our body has grown to the grid structure of certain social media websites like twitter. There is something aseptically pleasing about the structure of its form and how it’s depicted throughout nature is almost spooky.
Imagery which follows a mathematical format are extremely interesting and will be exploring aspects from a variant of these different ideas and forms to see how a collection of data through a mathematical aspect can become visual.
Coding is an extremely intelligent want of depicting data in a form which is more easily understandable way yet different ways of coding can become more of an aesthetically pleasing manor. The images that Gates is working from are great example of this, not only are they a using a complex format which is extremely interesting but have a strong sense of noise as well as very intricate form of geometry.
Whilst looking for other sources of coding I came across a designer who was able to create a code which was related to hip hop music.
This interesting way of using shapes and symbols to imitate a representation of music is something which is very different. I feel that this is a good reference to help push into a right direction of being able to come up with an almost imitation of the way I would like to develop on.
I would like to explore the way that by following a simple set of mathematical rules you can create images which are extremely technical yet very pleasing to the eye. Whilst looking for an example of this I came across two images which are a great depiction of this.
You can clearly see that both images represent each other and the development between the first to the second. I feel that by following and developing the different ways that both follow an almost algarsythm of form but you can clearly see a similarity between the second image and the images Gates seems to be working from.
Similar to the above image there are endless ways of drawing with mathematical properties for instance, Spirographs are draw by following a particular rotation and set amount of times which follows a the ratio of circumference.
These images not only contain a strong amount of information (data) in which to create them but they are extremely detailed and have potential to create a more interesting way of depicting data through the means of turning them into symbols as opposed to being interesting patterns.
Whilst researching I came across a set of animations which i found really interesting which kind of relates to this project in the sense of me looking at the shapes from mathematical format.
I find thees animations really interesting because of the way that they a on a repetitive loop and are extremely detailed. I started looking into how to make these. I started having a look how to make them within photoshop but just kept coming up with simplistic version where it would only be flashing imagery so I started looking into different programs which I could use. one of the programs I came across was cinema4D which is the most confusing and complex program I’ve come across which gave me difficulty trying to use it, however after watching a series of tutorials i managed to come up with a simple animation but because it was a demo I wasn’t able to save what I’d made but took screen shots.
I find this type of animation interesting and feel that in the past they’ve not really been taken seriously within computer interaction as the would take up to much ram and have the computer constantly working, however I feel due to such an advance in computer speed, these little animations have the potential to replace icons as well as other combining with touch devices for a more intimate connection with the device. I later went on to have a play around on adobe after effects which I found a lot easier.
