Designing Sound — archival prints

Five plates record five sounds that never existed as recordings. Each is the trace left by a drawing machine while it synthesized one chapter of Andy Farnell's Designing Sound: the energy chain, fire, wind, rain, and the fusion of clicks into a tone. Farnell's account is that sound is energy on its way to becoming heat; the machine computes each chapter's physical model live and draws every event it plays. Height is pitch, left to right is twenty seconds, and nothing appears on the plate unless it sounded. Green marks where the listener was.

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Plate 01, Energy chain: arcs of creaks thickening, a single green snap, the fall rising to the impact

Plate 02, Fire: fine crackle across the cycle, a band of waves entering on the right

Plate 03, Wind: a gust curve along the bottom, clusters of objects sounding above it

Plate 04, Rain: short drop marks thickening left to right, a rumble band entering

Plate 05, Fusion: vertical clicks crowding into a solid field as the rate crosses into pitch