An investigation into the architecture of vibrations

Stefani Biddle

Cymatics:

Table of Contents

サ イ マ テ ィ ク ス

Research

Development

Site

Design

Final: Part 1

Final: Part 2

4

10

20

28

39

47

54

Harald Finster - Photographer

Research

Cymatics (from Greek: “wave”) is the study of vis-ible sound co vibration, a subset of modal phenome-

na. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vi-

brated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are

made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid. Differ-

ent patterns emerge in the excitatory medium depending

on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency.from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taking that definition into account, I wanted to find images that re-flected some of the aspects of cymatic experiments. Harald Fin-ster has made a name by photographing old factories, both in-side and out. Throughout his vast collection of work, he showcased how the buildings and tools mimic the movement of the old pro-duction lines, displayng hints of symmetry, patterns, and textures.

6 7

Music Video - Nigel Stanford

In January of 2015, I stumbled across a music video titled CYMAT-ICS: Science Vs. Music. Made only months earlier by Nigel John Stanford, the song not only showcases sounds on three of the four stages of matter (solid, liquid, and plasma), but also the visu-al representation of music on different elements and instruments.

Nigel allows the viewer to see all of the experiments in mo-tion and how each of them are created. This allows for a unique combination of the senses by showcasing both the pleasure of music aurally and the power of science visually.

The experiments in this music video consist of the effects of salt on a chladni plate (a specialized speaker with a met-al plate attached), frozen vodka on a bass speaker, water in a hose pipe getting diplaced by a subwoofer, playing cards hit-ting a microphone to create a steady beat, micro speakers in ferro fluid (a thick magnetic liquid), a plasma ball hooked up to coordinate with a keyboard, a ruben’s tube, and a tesla coil.

The majority of the experiments deal with an alteration in frequen-cies rather than a change in notes per se. Each of tones produced are also specific and inclusive with that specific scientific tool.

8 9

Wooden detail model of a Carlo Scarpa joint showing symmetry in rotation

Quote and page taken from Lawrence Ferlinghetti overlayed with a map indicating the five senses as a journey through space

Two examples of folded and unfolded patterning in the art of origami

Geometrical OrigamiCarlo Scarpa and Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Development

During my initial research on cymatics, I brief-

ly approached vibrations of the earth. This led me to investiga-

tions along the proclaimed Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean. Al-

though I did not find enough “oomf” in my research to pursue

this route, the relationships between vibrations of nature vs.

those made by man were interesting. The country that stood

out the most was Japan, due to the recent large-scale

earthquake resulting in a devestating tsunami in March 2011.

I introduced myself to the basics of the culture, the art, and

some of the history. My first “aha” moment of this project occurred

when I noticed some similarities in the importance of sym-metry between cymatics and origami paper folding.

While origami tends to be appreciated most in its folded state, the

most dynamic findings occur when you unfold it again. The paper

wants to follow the premade lines; it does not curl but rather col-

lapses in on itself. The calculated spaces and contrast

between light and shadow that emerged from this study would

come to later fuel my design. When I believed myself stuck or lost

I returned and began playing with the paper - feeling the move-

ments occur under my hands, finding the spots of tension and flow within itself. Each time I was provided with new

angles and new views into the developing idea and yet pre-exist-

ing relationship between noise as a concept and noise as a form.

CYMATICSCYMATICS CA

CMY

TSICYMATICSSound

VibrationVi

al

su

Symmetrical

Lambdoma

Ha

o

scin

mrUrban

The Human BrainWaves

EarthquakeMusic Chladni

salt/sand/water

PatternLissajous

FrequencyHans Jenny

Therapy

Amplitudethree Feilds: periodicity at ground, Form at one Pole, and Motion at the other Pole

The Cocktail Party Effect

Compositions

DevelopmentNoise Pollution

Disability

Deaf

CYM AT I C S CYM AT I C SCACMY T SI

The top-left image is a collage of informa-tion, key words, and ideas that emerged from my research.

The letters for cymat-ics are overlaped to create positive and negative space. The top-right was created by shifting the letters. The bottom-center was produced by ro-tating and then slic-ing the result in half.

14 15

I then took the bottom-center typography study and acetoned multiple copies onto 20” x 20” brown paper. The resulting images were better than I had anticipated. Both the original printouts of the

letterforms as well as the products on the brown paper showed that movement was not simply an on/off switch but rather a dynamic, liv-ing entity with boundless external limits on its direction and intensity.

16 17

The discoveries from my drawings evolved into conceptu-al model building. Here I focused on capturing moments of intrigue from both my typographic and my acetone studies.

I also decided to try to capture the rhythm of the acetone graphics. I selected a small area on one of the draw-ings and outlined the shade variations, la-beling them from one to seven (one indicat-ed where there was no ink and seven where the ink was heaviest). Each number was then given a layer of pa-per and mounted on a chipboard base to suggest topography.

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Rather than taking leaps and bounds backwards either, I systematically ar-ranged the leftover pieces of the topographic explo-ration and drew a 2:1 scale model. By mapping only the points that reached the perimeter, I was able to establish a system that mimicked patterns found on seismographs.

My first “road block” oc-cured when I realized I had started losing order within the vague cha-os that the definition of movement brings. I was not quite ready for stand-alone 3-D models yet. I had to find the symme-try again. I had to cre-ate specific moments of stillness held captured within movement itself.

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Site

Grid

Horizontal

Vertical

Both

The more I looked at my 2-D topographic exploration the more I saw

it as a literal map rather than a figurative one. It connects

people through both smaller lines and larger land masses. In or-

der to start cementing which paths were going to be the most im-

portant, I knew I needed a site. Naturally, I returned to Japan and

began digging myself deeper into the history and culture. I

also played around on the computer by laying my map onto some

existing topography the large archipelago offered me.

Culturally, Japan has been rapidly becoming more westernized

in the past 75 years. However, as a people, they still keep a lot of

century-old traditions, mainly in the form of art. This bal-

ance between the old and the new presents itself in different ways

throughout the land. Like many nations, Japan has a vast array

of climates and environments from icy mountains to

warm summer beaches. But how does this relate to cymatics?

Yes, there are earthquakes. Yes, It can relate to origami. Where are

the movements elsewhere? How do people move? Cars?

Boats? Wait! Japan is famous for the bullet train. What cities are

stops on the bullet train? Tokyo? Hiroshima? Osaka? Kyoto,

the historical epicenter. Kyoto was the capital of Japan from 794 to

1868 and once the site of the emporer’s home. It is also one of the

largest cities in the country creating a unique blend of an-

cient shrines surrounded by large skyscrapers and shopping malls.

22 23

Once I realized Kyoto was a good option for a site, I approached Google Earth to view the different modes of transportation in the city. I expanded from the bullet train as a single entity to the entire sub-way system. There are 16 total commuting lines in Kyoto, 2 public above-ground railways, 2 public be-low-ground subways, and 12 private railways. The metro lines follow natural elements in the city, like rivers and mountains, rather than a perfectly gridded structure. Still, I wanted to see what the city looked liked with my four extractions from the topographic exploration drawing. While my graphed image creat-ed the illusion of extra pathways that don’t evidently exist in Kyoto already, I noticed my red mass outlines reflected the site more. In the image to the right, many sections of my extracted land masses line up with the surrounding mountainous landscape. In other places the masses coordinate with the met-ro railways at various vertices and parallel lines.

24 25

I traced over the combined map, and pinpoint-ed seven areas of interest along two pathways. All seven points are reflective of my initial model studies - one for each. At this point in the proj-ect, designing at city-scale was a bit too much to wrap my head around. Therefore, I scaled the traced image down to building size to focus solely at human scale. I begin visualizing how the peo-ple of Kyoto could walk from one point to another and the paths they could carve out of the space.

26 27

After all of the in-depth studies I had done two-dimensionally, I really wanted to step back into model building. Remaining in the world of abstract concept, I cut fifty 20cm x 6cm pieces of chip-board. I used the linework of the Kyoto metro map overlay, moved to fit into a 20’ x 100’ lot, and began cutting away. This was meant to signify a bond between the physical journey humans take daily and the vivid, breathing nature of cymatics. I made my knife precise along the paths but let it loose and morph in scale along the way.

The two sketches below were preliminary studies for the available site zones and some different environments found throughout Kyo-to. Each environment was given a corresponding building material in order to figure out which one worked best for my fiuture models.

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My initial concept was to take various metro stations and

connect them together in an interactive setting. The thought was

to combine the traditional parts of the city and the more modern-

ized areas by bridging the growing cultural gap currently occuring

throughout much of Eastern Asia. I considered which medium to

use for the interactive feature, going back and forth be-

tween light and water or both. One idea was to have the feature

at one station being controlled by someone from another station

and vice versa. Another possibility was the feature to correspond

with the coming and going of the metro underground, as a signal

of when the trains were at the station. Looking at each of

the metro stations in the city, I decided to lay my focus on the

Karasuma Line which runs north to south and passes

through three major stops, Kyoto, Shijo, and Karasuma Oike. This

line begins in the mountains, travels past the imperial grounds

and through the heart of the city, and ends in the suburbs just

across the Kamo River. This provided me with an array of oppor-

tunities to work within different environments. The biggest chal-

lenge was going to be trying to design structures that would com-

pliment each environment while still retaining a sense of unity, that

each station was part of a series rather than individual hubs.

Design

29

Original measurements taken at each of the fif-teen stations along the Karasuma metro line to observe relation of scale between one another.

30 31

I plotted the designated locations to both re-flect the 2-D topographic exploration drawing but also to carve out potential structural supports.

I started raising each of the gridded points into an-gular planes which correspond directly with origa-mi folds in an effort to produce roofs for the stations.

32 33

The roofs of each station are given a higher an-gular variation based on the number of com-muters at each station. The more metro riders the greater the height of the roof and vice versa.

The two areas outlined in red were then rec-reated out of chipboard to get a physical look into the creation of the roofs. The chip-board models can be found on the next page.

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Another idea I had was to over-lap each of the sites and create a large puzzle-like structure spread out across the city in order to truly represent the project as a series.

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These are the final areas of the station zones. Each of these are found within 30 feet to an entrance/exit of a stop along the Kara-suma Line. The perimiters determine the limits of my effects on the city with-out damaging any exist-ing structures and halting the flow of pedestrians.

Now that I had fixed boudaries for my de-sign to exist, I realized that the concepts of both the puzzle idea and the roof idea were still too basic in shape and static in presence. This led to movement of the stations themselves. By using the fundamen-tal principles of move-ment, such as rotate, the designs became more dymnamic and better reflected the sci-ence behind cymatics.

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Final: Part IOne of the most interesting, and slightly amusing, discoveries of

this project is the difference in commuting between Ja-

pan and countries like the United States. In America, if the subway

trains look full, you wait for the next one. However, Japan is much

more serious about punctuality than the west. In many

cities, there are workers who are paid to stand on metro plat-forms and push as many people into a car as possible.

There is no personal space left, only shared space.

It is also not uncommon to recieve minor injuries during the ride.

This model concept involves shifting layers of wood (represented here as paper) placed at certain heights to provide a unique seat-ing experience and a more dramatic play of light and shadows.

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Initial Movement Diagram Models

Station 6 - shift

Station 4 - merge

Station 2 - shift

Station 5 - reflect

Station 3 - shift

Station 1 - stretch

Station 7 - stretch

Each station is assigned a singular principle of movement based on size of sidewalk, flow of traffic, intersection crosswalks, entrances to buildings or subway, and pre-existing vegetation.

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Station 8 - rotate

Station 10 - rotate

Station 12 - reflect

Station 14 - rotate

Station 9 - shift

Station 11 - rotate

Station 15 - reflect

Station 13 - rotate

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Material investigation with wood

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Initial test on folding method and effective drawing strategies

Final: Part IIWhile wood initially seemed like the perfect choice of building mate-rial for the models, they appeared too stiff and didn’t actually show the intended variation in both scale and size that I wanted to con-vey. They were too culturally-driven and less experimentally-driven.

Ascending- areas of the city where the size of buildings or typical number of passengers increase from station to station

Descending- areas of the city where the size of buildings or typical number of passengers decrease from station to station

Ebb & Flow- areas of the city where there is a larger communal setting or where business commuters typically interact with consumers

Reflection- areas of the city where multiple entrances/exits of metro stations can be found directly across the road from each other

Rotaton- areas of the city where there is clear directional movement to the flow of pedestrians, typically at corners

Shift- areas of the city where there is a large change in the environment from either one build-ing to the next or from one station to the next

I used the principles found in the practice models as a basis

to create a set of guidelines and restrictions to showcase only

the elements of movement that best represented Kyoto. The

nest series of models are placed directly onto paper site mod-

els. The folds in the sites represent buildings and other existing

structures are meant to tie back into the concepts of origami.

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K01

KOKUSAIKAIKAN

ebb & flow

shift

50 51

K03

KITAYAMA

reflection

shift

K02

MATSUGASAKI

descending

52 53

K05

KURAMAGUCHI

reflection

rotation

K04

KITAOJI

ascending

ebb & flow

rotation

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K07

MARUTAMACHI

descending

shift

K06

IMADEGAWA

rotation

shift

56 57

K09

SHIJO

descending

shift

K08

KARASUMA OIKE

ebb & flow

rotation

shift

58 59

K11

KYOTO

ebb & flow

rotation

K10

GOJO

ascending

rotation

60 61

K13

JUJO

reflection

rotation

shift

K12

KUJO

reflection

shift

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K15

TAKEDA

ascending

reflection

shift

K14

KUINABASHI

rotation

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Initial ideas for project stamp

Pursued idea for project stamp

Final stamp design

Presenting my findings - May 1, 2015

Spring 2015James Madison University