Markus Decker, Dietmar Offenhuber, Orkan Telhan

‘Dust Serenade‘ is a reenactment of an acoustic experiment done by German physicist August Kundt. Inspired by the Chladni’s famous sand figures visualizing sound waves in solid materials, Kundt devised an experiment for visualizing longitudinal sound waves through fine lycopodium dust; a setup that would allow him to measure the speed of sound in different gases.

Kundt was a strong believer in experimental methods over purely theoretical inquiry in a time when the disciplines of theoretical and experimental physics started to diverge.

‘Dust Serenade’ intends to remind us the materiality of sound. Tubes filled with scraps of words and letters–cut-up theory–interact with sound waves and turn into figures of dust. Here, visitors can modulate the frequency of the sound emitted by moving a rod and create different harmonic sound effects. As sound waves figure, refigure, and disfigure the text, we invite visitors to rethink about the tension between their theorical knowlegde and the sensory experience.

Dust Serenade is one of a series of interactive sound projects that enable visitors to experience the physical aspects of sound, presence, and atmosphere. Works in the series have been shown at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Zagreb, Istanbul and São Paulo.

The project was funded by the Council for the Arts at MIT and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK)

In Netzpioniere, an art-historical project contextualizing the practice of early net art, SemaSpace is used for exploring the social structure of the early “Thing” network, a central hub of the early net art scene. In the project, also the synchronoptic timeline conceptualized together with Mar Canet Sola is used.

You can visit the project and the visualizations

The second project, Facing Science conducted at the Humboldt University Berlin, explores the social structure of scientific collaborations across different disciplines and countries, a part of the WeltWissen exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau Berlin. Tim Otto Roth also made a nice documentation page for the application.

Link to the project

our project page and a related post on WMMNA

Photo: Pez Hejduk

update: an article in derStandard

This project presents the results of an interdisciplinary investigation of the Prix Ars Electronica archive in the form of interactive and static visualizations of information. The archive is examined on three levels: total submissions since 1987 as a quantitative analysis, the jury process as a social network analysis, and the winning projects and their context in accordance with art scholarship.

The project is a collaboration between the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute Media.Art.Research. and Ars Electronica. More on our visualization showcase website.

News: The project was featured on infosthetics.com, thanks Mahir!

more on the blog of see this sound.

Die für diese Arbeit entwickelte  „Wackel“ – Technik unterstützt diese Verfremdung. Durch die Bewegungsparallaxe entsteht bei längerer Betrachtung ein räumlicher Eindruck, der mit dem stereoskopischen Sehen vergleichbar ist, aber eine andere Qualität besitzt. Der Soundtrack der neun präsentierten Räume geht noch einen Schritt weiter und überlagert ein sich durchziehendes Grundgeräusch – wie im Fiebertraum – mit assoziativen Elementen.

Bei manchen Betrachtern kann der Film durch die dargestellten Bewegungsmuster Schwindel und Übelkeit auslösen.

Credits:
Bild: Dietmar Offenhuber; Ton: Sam Auinger Hannes Strobl
14 min; digital Video HD720p; prod. Frühjahr 2009

Original Concept: Dietmar Offenhuber & Gerhard Dirmoser

Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Media Art Research