Fun project: cymatics, music

[enjoypolo]

Hey Everyone,

Has anyone successfully experimented with cymatics with interesting results? I am planning to setup a real simple rig at my workplace (Laptop + amp + car speaker with a water-filled petridish), just to play around.
No real purpose (yet) but I figured it would be fun.

Then yesterday, I stumbled upon oscilloscope music, a genre I hadn't even known existed. Basically, a form of music using waveguides from an oscilloscope. It's like cymatics, but adds a twist to it. This Austrian duo, Jerobeam Fenderson are pioneers of this:

What's incredible is that it's mathematical in nature. Also, it's an amazing way of visualizing mathematics and sound. Abstract concepts like sin/cosine; fidelity of audio quality, all are way easier to understand with this medium. One thing that blew my mind for instance, is how when you play the track such a track and analyze it with an oscilloscope, you get the exact same shape (does that make sense?), albeit with distortions depending on the fidelity (sampling size of the track).

Then I was re-listening to the recent THC with Eric Dollard, and his musical seismograph project. Joe Rogan was also talking about dolphins with the director of the film The Cove, and how dolphins can communicate with frequencies up to 200khz (our range is up to 20khz). I wonder if you can feed dolphin/whale sounds and get these sort of waveforms, or from the belly of Mother Earth, or even an organ Bach fugue.

Dollard mentioned how the plasma discharge from the Tesla speakers look as though alive. That's exactly how those oscilloscope things look too.

If you have any suggestions for interesting ways of using these formats, or have relating experiences, please share, it's fascinating stuff!

Laser cymatics:

PS: check out the whale songs on this archive: https://patternradio.withgoogle.com

 

[enjoypolo]

exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

(skip to 4:30 to watch results)

DIY Li-Fi project sounds like an easy project for such an incredible technological feat! For those that don't know about Li-Fi, it stands for Light Fidelity (Think Wi-Fi but using high-speed modulated visible light spectrum instead of microwave/radiowave transmission). With today's cheap and ubiquitous LED technology available, these sort of projects are more accessible than ever before.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why most of the Li-Fi DIY I've come across are from kids in India. While in the West, we're still debating about 5G technology.
This is why I think the next big thing will come from the "developing" world, (or BRICS for lack of better word), and not from the Old empire.

I'm definitely wanting to try this simple setup soon, as a simple proof-of-concept.
Things that could be fun to try is:
- Using a modulated laser pointer as transmitter instead of LED (coherent light would make for better fidelity, no?)
- a better photon receptor than a simple solar panel. Or maybe a better solar panel. What's the best, or most sensitive photon detector out there? The eye? a camera? water? Or simply a dark room.
- I wonder if different colours (spectrum) have different properties. It'd be interesting to try with IR to make light invisible as well.
- Use of mirrors to bounce off transmission in novel ways (like say a disco-ball: data for everyone!) Even better, infinity mirrors!

What do you think?
Personally, I feel Li-fi is the nexus of the power of Light (Jacob Lieberman), Technology, and Biology.

PS: For info, I got the insight to check this after an email exchange with Anton Fedorenko, very kind water researcher who advised me to make a simple setup to use infoceutics (information-pharmaceuticals, or how to transmit data via water) using EM, including sound vibrations. He advised me to modulate the voltage of the LEDs based on the audio signal, basically the Li-Fi trick above!

PPS: Is it far-fetched to think that one could modulate using voltage of your body, and thus "let your body speak", and by the same token, do the same with Mother Earth? Kind of like how Eric Dollar is building a musical seismograph. Would be very cool!