SYNTHESIZE
senior thesis
light and sound do more than surround us
they move us, physically and emotionally
SYNTHESIZE is a conceptual space where visitors can experience the science behind that connection firsthand. Through interactive displays and immersive rooms, visitors can discover what it means to "feel color" or "see sound" in ways they may haven never thought about before.
The exhibition takes place at 46 West 13th Street, with a cafe open to the public and a ticketed experience beyond the cafe. The ticketed experience is divided into five sections — origin, spectrum, resonance, convergence, and reflection.
As a physical representation of this conceptualized space, I wanted to play into Chladni's law where Ernst Chladni essentially discovered a way to visualize sound. Chladni’s law describes how the vibration frequency of a flat circular plate relates to the patterns that form on it. When a plate vibrates, sand sprinkled on its surface collects along the nodal lines, the places that stay still, and forms what are called Chladni figures.
f = C (m + 2n)^p
f is the frequency of the vibration mode.
m is the number of nodal lines that cross the plate’s center (its diameters).
n is the number of nodal circles.
C is a constant that depends on the plate’s material, thickness, and size.
p is an exponent that depends on the plate’s shape. For flat plates it’s close to 2, so frequency rises roughly with the square of (m + 2n).
In easier terms, each added nodal circle raises the frequency about twice as much as an added diameter does. As the pitch rises, the patterns become more intricate.
I fabricated my own Chladni's plate for my midterm review, but used water instead of sand because my plate wasn't flat enough for the sand to read well. I wanted to recreate it on a larger scale for my final, however with a strict no water rule from FIT's museum, I resorted in creating a digital display of Chladni's Law. I built this display using TouchDesigner, and had it programmed to play a frequency of 440 hertz as a default baseline, and to adjust the frequency pitch by reading the movement of the user's wrist on the x axis, increasing from left to right. In return, the particles on the screen danced and organized themselves in accordance to Chladni's Law.
TOOLS USED: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, 3D Studio Max, TouchDesigner, & laser cutter