Visualising Sound Waves

Visualising Sound Waves

Visualising Sound Waves explores sound waves’ visual patterns

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Visualising Sound Waves, 2018, acrylic on latex sheets 33 x 33 cm

This work was created for Wavelengths, a group show comprising nine contemporary female artists responding to Virginia Woolf’s novel.

Woolf and sound

  • In her Novel The Waves, Woolf is thought to be ‘writing to a rhythm and not to a plot’. She was listening to Beethoven as she wrote and drew from his work structurally.
  • Woolf also listened to the radio as her husband, Leonard, was a regular broadcaster.
  • The sounds of war, air-raid warnings, the buzz of low-flying planes, the noises of bombs exploding and glass tinkling, the rate of machine-guns and anti-aircraft fire were all a common occurrence. (Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life By Julia Briggs)

Material

Latex sheets, sand, white spray paint, homemade amplifier

before spraying
After Spraying

Method

Many viewers asked me about the process, so here it is: When a note is played (you can also sing it through the tube), the taut latex vibrates which makes the sand hovers above it to form a shape that corresponds to the frequency created by the note. Once settled in their pattern, you spray the paint. Once the paint has dried, wipe off the area with the sand, leaving the negative of the shape.