Oculus Flight

Our first film collaboration with Kamil Czapiga (Cosmodernism) was with The Crystal Lab. In this second outing, we found a common subject- water. Some of our preoccupations this year have been around this life-giving molecule while Cosmodernism has been simultaneously experimenting with cymatics and water.

Cymatics is the study of sound and vibration made visible, typically on the surface of a place, diaphragm, or membrane. It is a subset of modal vibrational phenomena.  The term was coined by Hans Jenny (1904-1972) a Swiss physician and natural scientist. The multiple forms of universal geometry, symmetry and beauty that emerge through resonance in various mediums, allow us to ponder the nature of sound, form and many more questions. The word itself derives from the Greek “kuma” meaning “billow” or “wave” to describe the periodic effects that sound, and vibration have on matter, the study of which have been around since antiquity. With this short film, we enter the fray, to observe the exciting resonance patterns of water triggered by varying sound frequencies.

The video recorded was captured with a camera whose macro lens pointed at the surface of the water. The water container was mounted on a low-frequency speaker, which, by setting it in motion through a synthesizer, vibrated the water above it. All the shapes and arrangements observed were the result of precise control of frequency, volume, type of lighting and the shape of the vessel itself in which the water was placed. As Kamil notes, “for sound production, I used synthesizers, samplers and, among other things, sound recordings of boiling water, which, when properly processed and slowed down, turned out to be a great sound design element of the observed reactions.”