CMU School of Drama


Saturday, October 04, 2014

Soap + Light = Audiovisual Display Of Sound

Gear content from Live Design: Soap + light = audiovisual display of sound through projections. Huh? This equation may make some people (ahem, me) want to snap the pencil in half in frustration, but not Dagny Rewera because he has already solved it, and in style, too.

13 comments:

Alex E. S. Reed said...

This actually pretty interesting. It is kind of hard to discern exactly whats going on with the soap the theory itself is pretty cool. I wonder why the chose soap specifically for this, but more importantly what they plan to do with this new found knowledge. what kind of implications could this have in the audio world? I don;t know much about sound but studying the waves in this manner might provide some useful information, no? Altogether its a really cool experiment, I just wonder where they could go with it!

Sasha Mieles said...

Honestly, this is pretty cool. I've seen a lot of sound vibration art pieces, but the fact that the color changes as well is new to me. I don't see how this could be used practically in theatre though, because of the nature of the stage. Unless is was used as a projection, this would be very hard to be useful. It is interesting though, and I would love to see someone incorporate it into anything.

Nicholas Coauette said...

While this may be cool to some, I honestly just find it kind of boring. This has been done in many ways already, each of them more intricate and less-boring than the next. One of the main ways that comes to mind in visualizing sound and its movement is the Pyro Board, 2D Ruben's Tube. This has the movement of gas and flame being manipulated by the sound waves of the music that is being played. Again, I guess that this soup thing could be pretty cool, but to me it is just another way of showing something that has been done many times before to a much less interesting effect.

Evan Smith said...

I’ve always seen how windows shake when you turn the bass up load enough, and even feel the ground vibrate beneath my feet. This is something that throws everything into that same type of perspective. Being able to visualize what the bubble does in reaction to the music that is played, makes me think that every other type of vibrating object almost has a similar reaction if it could. Sure it wouldn’t be as orchestrated, but you could notice it nevertheless. To see how the music changed the structure of the bubble when the frequency changed the colors had a unity amongst it. The video was a little difficult to follow along to get a better sense as to how much the bubble reacted because of the various camera changes, I think that is the only downside to this experiment. Only getting brief glimpses of what was happening; I don’t think was enough to be able to fully comprehend the intensity of transformation.

Emily Bordelon said...

While this article was intriguing at first, I found myself very bored, very quickly. The title was more made this sound so much more interesting than it actually was. They could have done so much more with what they had! I was really excited, thinking that there were going to be neat patterns and exciting music, but the "performance" was mediocre at best. I've seen better displays using a small speaker, a paper cup, and some colored sand. Simply put, I was disappointed with the effect. It was underwhelming and could have had so much more of a potential.

Unknown said...

This looked so cool and exciting at first. I thought, from how the article described it, that the sound vibrations would be creating actual bubbles, not little soap puddles that sat on top of the bubble ring and vibrated to the beat, which is far less exciting. I was already pondering what other kinds of things could be done with this type of technology, and then I was incredibly disappointed. However, I think the idea of the projection on the screen of the bubble is a cool idea. I wonder if adding soap to moving to sheets of water would increase the quality of the projection as well as the color payoff.

Trent Taylor said...

Thats pretty cool. I think that the idea behind that is really interesting but I also think that the result is very aesthetically pleasing. I think this idea has great potential for expansion. Is it possible that this could be used on a larger scale in a theatre piece? It could almost definitely be worked into an installation art work. I also think because sound is so hard to visualize, this could be a very effective tool in helping people to learn about sound and how it works, before they gain a more critical ear.

Unknown said...

I think it is really interesting how this set up creates a euphoric presence of sound through something so simple as soap. I think we often forget how interconnected things are and we easily dismiss audio and visuals to be there own two separate things, when in reality they are much more interconnected than we might think. Sound is comprised of vibrations that are just as present as anything else in our visible world if only we use the right means to perceive them. I love how this display builds on that and uses it to make a awesome kaleidoscope like display of colors.

Michael James said...

I was underwhelmed by the actual video but the photo looked very cool. This art piece could create compelling textures if there were multiple setups in one space. It reminds me of the current exhibition at the Woodstreet Galleries. Finnbogi Petursson's SECOND / SECOND exhibition is based on the phenomenons of light and sound. His work Infra Supra places speakers above a body of water, vibrating in sinuous patterns. Lights shine on the water, reflecting the waves created by the vibrations onto the wall. That exhibit is very effective because of its scale. This exhibition is useful because of its color and more dynamic movement but its smaller size is less impactful. I would like to see it in person because it seems the video doesn't present it very well.

Unknown said...

I think this is really cool. The combination of light and sound working together on their own is very interesting. I cannot really tell what the soap is doing, but it is really cool that the colors are changing.This could be used in a club setting maybe, but not in theatre. This doesn't seem very predictable, which is very important in theatre because a designer wants everything to look exactly how they planned it to look. The soap seems to randomly change colors probably depending on its ingredients and consistency.

Tom Kelly said...

yea this is pretty cool, i don't think its groundbreaking or innovative because i've seen similar experiments before but for the cause of entertainment its cool. I think that something that has been done this much needs to either change in order to create something new or just leave it as is and not come up as new entertainment. I think that something like this could really add to a show as a whole but i don't think i could look ad this for very long. I enjoyed the information in this article but like i said it wasn't innovative.

jcmertz said...

This is kinda neat, It is cool to see natural objects used to filter light instead of man made ones as we are used to. That said, I have to agree with Nick that there have been many much cooler ways of visualizing sound experimented with, and to greater effect than this. I think the media aspect here is actually much more interesting and compelling than the sound. It makes me think about what would happened if you projected into a field of bubbles or something cool like that.

anna rosati said...

Because sound is an invisible force, it is so easy to overlook its physical presence. I really appreciate projects like this one that strive to put a visual to that force. I think the video probably makes the piece look much more intense than it is in reality, but nonetheless, it's incredible to "see" sound and the effect it can have on tangible things. It makes me think differently about what it must be like to be an improvisational dancer: Letting the vibrations of the music move in a very literal sense, not simply letting it penetrate your mind and emotions.