Starting with the 18th-century experiments of Ernst Chladni and merging them with the work of Margaret Watts Hughes in the 1890s and Hans Jenny in the 1960s, Factum’s research has focused on the synaesthetic nature of digital data. The brass plates which make up ‘Material Sound – Chladni Plates’ vibrate according to the resonant frequencies of the plates themselves when excited by sound.
A custom-made transducer system including a piezoelectric device is attached to the underside of each plate. When a plate resonates, the sand particles realign along the peaks and troughs of the soundwaves – they disperse where the plate is in motion and settle in clearly-defined lines on the still nodes where no movement takes place. The size, shape, and thickness of the plates (6mm thick and up to 2m in length) all contribute to the ever-changing patterns created by both audible and inaudible frequencies of sound.
An emerging and changing artwork by: Jorge Cano, Adam Lowe, Nathaniel Mann, Charlotte Skene Catling
With the support of: Enrique Esteban, Francesco Cicognetti, Francisco Regalado, Miguel Hernando, Guillem Bayo, Matt Button, Albert Munté and Victor Camilleri