Ways of Seeing Sound
lecture/performance & installation
“Why can’t sounds be visible? Would the feedback from ear to eye cause fatal oscillation?”
(Pauline Oliveros)
What is sound?
What is this material that we can’t see nor touch?
After fifteen years of working as a sound artist, this project questions the very nature of sound. Moving beyond recording and digital manipulation, the research returns to sound at its origin; as vibration, wave, and variation in air pressure. Inspired by early scientific studies of sound from the late 18th and early 19th centuries and developed in collaboration with the Ghent University Museum (GUM), the work translates sound into a visible medium through a series of experiments.
The result is a lecture-performance and installation that re-enacts historical experiments and culminates in a poetic exploration of how sound can be seen, experienced, and understood—where sound, science, and the visual meet.
This project is the result of my research Sound as Vibration.
Credits
Concept and realisation: Els Viaene
Technical assistance: Koen Daems
Video electronics: Elias Heuninck
Light design: Simon Siegmann
This artwork is a production by Lydgalleriet
And was part of the Oscillations – Exercises in Resilience series
Exhibitions
2024
Stuk, Leuven (B)
2023
Liebig12 / Tuned City, Berlin (D)
2021
Lydgalleriet, Bergen (NO)
