CYMATIC: Transmuting Vibrations

Much of science can be described as an act of translation—scientific models abstract complex realities into representations we can understand, and that align with the way our minds comprehend the world around us. This allows us to glimpse facets of a world otherwise hidden from our senses. Erika Weitz and Thomas Noya's CYMATIC is a project that situates itself in this interesting context of translation: building upon three centuries of image-making technology, the work explores how a single phenomenon can manifest itself across multiple dimensions of human perception.

Bringing together Erika’s collodion photography—one of the earliest photographic processes of the 19th century—and Thomas Noya’s generative art, an emergent artform that currently stands poised as one of the most important movements of our era, the project ties into an ongoing dialogue that aims to unite the digital with the analogue. Through an alchemical process, CYMATIC transmutes transient vibrations into tangible form: a bespoke, code-driven system simulates cymatic resonance patterns, projected as coded light onto a wet plate, and recorded as permanent images via collodion photography.

The project emerges as a close collaboration between the artists and fxhash: in a hands-on, collaborative approach that is quite unique to fxhash, the team has provided guidance, advice, and assistance in bringing the project to fruition from day zero. The collaboration culminates in CYMATIC being featured at fxhash’s own booth at the Paris Photo Fair 2024—the 27th edition of the prestigious photography event that takes place annually at the Grand Palais.

In this manner, CYMATIC unfolds in two complementary parts, as a series of 5 physical artworks, presented at the Paris Photo Fair, as well as a digital, generative long-form collection published on the blockchain, via fxhash.

Cymatics, collodion photography, and light abstraction are all fields with fascinating historic contexts; CYMATIC ultimately embodies a rich and dynamic interplay between historical and contemporary practices, giving rise to many points of discussion worth exploring in more depth.

Cymatics: The Study of Visible Sound

While the cymatic phenomenon had already been observed on three separate accounts throughout the past centuries, from Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo Galilei, and Robert Hooke, without any of the three knowing about each others’ experiments, it wasn’t until the German physicist and musician Ernst Chladni formally described the phenomenon in his 1787 book titled “Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges” (“Discoveries in the Theory of Sound”). Today the book is considered a seminal work in acoustics, earning Chladni the title of “father of acoustics”.

Cymatic patterns are in essence visual representations of sound waves that emerge when a solid surface is vibrated. For visualization purposes, this works best when a resonant metal plate is covered with a fine powder or granular substance (like salt or sand). When the surface is then subjected to a specific frequency, by exciting it with a bow like Chladni did in his early experiments, or via an electronic stimulus, the powder traces out the areas of minimal vibration—also called nodal lines—to form intricate geometric patterns. In this context, Chladni patterns are a specific subset of cymatic patterns, that are particularly visually alluring.

CYMATIC’s initial concept phase started with this kind of physical setup, where the artists explored the variety of patterns that could emerge, as well as the interesting relationship that the emergent patterns had with musical structures.

This is when the idea for incorporating a musical element came to be—not in a literal sense, but conceptually—to narrow down the range of patterns. Erika began exploring different kinds of scales and learned about the pentatonic scale. It is one of music's most ancient and universal structures, and holds a unique place in human history as a universal thread across diverse cultures.

While five represented a realistic number of artworks to create; the number also resonated with the artists, as it caries symbolic significance across various fields, frequently representing concepts of balance, human experience, and natural harmony. In anthropological and historical contexts, the number 5 often symbolizes humanity itself, as seen in our five senses, fingers, and toes, whereas in numerology, it is associated with adaptability and exploration.

This concept was then the central scaffold around which CYMATIC came to be; just as cymatic patterns reveal hidden structural relationships in sound through visual means, the pentatonic scale reveals underlying mathematical and harmonic relationships that transcend cultural boundaries.

Having set the foundations for the project, it was now for the artists to explore how Cymatic patterns could be simulated with code, and then subsequently transformed into physical artworks.

Collodion Photography as a Modern Artform

With over 17 years of experience in photography, and 10 years of working with the wet plate process, Erika has truly become a master of collodion photography—a rare and complicated craft in this day and age. In this manner, Erika has pioneered a number of new approaches to merge the analog with the digital.

Invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851, collodion photography is more commonly known today as Wet Plate Photography. The collodion-based process significantly enhanced both the quality and sensitivity of photographic images compared to earlier methods; their finer detail, and the relatively shorter exposure time to produce them made them a favoured choice for portraiture in the mid-19th century. It was used as a practical method for capturing likenesses during the civil war, such that soldiers could send photographs back home to their families.

The wet plate process involves coating a glass or metal plate with a collodion solution—a syrupy mixture of nitrocellulose dissolved in ether and alcohol—before immersing it in a silver nitrate bath to make it light-sensitive. The plate must then be exposed and developed while still wet, typically within a matter of minutes, which is how the technique earned its name.

This requirement made the process logistically demanding, as photographers had to carry portable darkrooms to coat, expose, and develop each plate in quick succession. The technique remained popular until it was gradually replaced by dry plate processes towards the end of the 19th century, which allowed for the development of images at a later time, making photography overall more accessible.

Erika explains that throughout the 2010s there was a strong resurgence in the analog form; the tradition may have faded entirely were it not for Civil War re-enactors and photographic historians who helped revive interest in the technique. Forum posts from the era also indicate however, that this resurgence was due to a general push-back against the increasingly digital landscape of photography. Erika discovered collodion photography in 2012; the first time she encountered a photo captured with the method, the high contrast, depth, and palpable emotion of it immediately resonated with her, and led her down a personal journey of discovery.

As a more experimental and hands-on alternative process, Erika describes that there was something magical about collodion photographs; they often revealed more than what the human eye could see (and what digital cameras could capture) as the utilised chemicals are sensitive to a different, broader range of the electromagnetic spectrum:

There's something fascinating about the way wet plate photography doesn't capture the same spectrum as the human eye. The slight "alienness" of wet plate portraits, where the subjects look familiar yet different, became a space I was interested in exploring and understanding. There was a sense of alchemy to it.

~ Erika Weitz

Today, artists and photographers around the world continue to practice the method, for historical photography, but also as an experimental modern artform. Despite it being a big challenge in many ways, Erika kept at it over the years—culminating in several highly acclaimed projects and collaborations.

For a previous project Erika collaborated with Casey Reas, founding member of the Processing language, to transform machine-learned images into analogue, tactile abstractions. In “Wet and Saturated Process” the richly textured works aim to embody Flusser’s notion of the “technical image”: a depiction of reality complicated across a range of systems, bridging our material and immaterial worlds through automation and handmade creation.

CYMATIC ties into this narrative, as a continuation of a broader exploration in bringing together the digital with the analogue—investigating the union of generative code with collodion photography.

Between Science and Art

CYMATIC follows in the footsteps of early experiments in light abstraction, an artform that emerged in the 20th century as a new avenue in abstract photography. Situated somewhere between scientific visualization and artistic practice, light abstraction aims to capture visual phenomena in a way that emphasizes the form and movement of light, rather than the literal representation of subjects—often revealing hidden patterns typically invisible to the naked eye.

Ben Laposky and Berenice Abbott were two important pioneering figures in that regard, and their work directly inspired CYMATIC. Both of their experiments demonstrated that photography could simultaneously serve as a tool for scientific inquiry, and as a means of abstract artistic expression. Effectively dissolving the perceived boundaries between the two disciplines.

In the 1950s Laposky created what he termed "oscillons"—abstract electronic compositions generated on an oscilloscope screen and then captured through long-exposure photography. This way Laposky transformed mathematical wave forms into elegant undulating visual compositions that were also considered an early form of generative art. During the same time-period, Abbott’s explorations at MIT culminated in scientifically accurate and aesthetically compelling artworks—many of which served as direct guiding influences for CYMATIC.

In CYMATIC a custom, code-driven system developed by Thomas Noya simulates the pentatonic scale’s associated Chladni patterns, that are then cast as light projections onto a wet plate, where Erika captures them via collodion photography. Each one of the resulting artworks then represents a moment suspended in time in which transient vibrations take tangible form, abstracting a scientific phenomenon as a physical artwork.

CYMATIC is a project that embodies this relationship between scientific inquiry and artistic expression, not only through its core concept, but also through the approach that the artists took to create the work: weeks of experimentation, testing techniques across both platforms, and observing how the two mediums could interact, ultimately resulted in a unique synthesis where the technical and artistic elements were in balance—creating works that were as visually striking on the metal plate as they were in their digital form.

Erika and Thomas’ collaboration goes beyond merely combining an analogue and a digital technique, it also explores a deeper connection between intuition, experimentation, and the creative process itself. Not only do the artists engage in a dialogue with their own respective mediums, but in this setting, the artists also have to engage and understand the process of the other.

It's been a challenging but rewarding experience, finding ways to bridge those disciplines and discover the commonalities beneath the technical differences. I believe there's an underlying shared creative process and intuition that can serve as a kind of "Rosetta stone" between them. With Thomas, it's been about finding that common ground and figuring out how to effectively communicate across our different backgrounds

~ Erika Weitz

Similarly to how Erika treats the wet plate as a framework for experimentation, many contemporary generative artists use code as a playground for creative expression. Although code is based on strict rules, it turns out to be a surprisingly expressive medium. On several accounts the endeavour has been described as a dialogue between the artist (the coding artist) and the machine—up to the point that it might be considered a cliche at this point—but is in fact a ubiquitous modern occurrence.

What really interests me about generative systems is the idea of creating a core structure that has its own agency. It’s like a conversation between you and the system. That’s what excites me—the idea of having a dialogue with the work, where it takes you in directions you didn’t expect.

~ Thomas Noya

In this setting, both the wet plate, and code become playgrounds for creative expression and experimentation, where the artists engage in a dialogue with their respective mediums. Perhaps this element of surprise that we see artists lean into, time and time again, is ultimately not a commonality that different mediums share, but rather a defining characteristic of those who make art. The surprising nature of the medium becomes a product of the artists creativitiy and expertise, transcending the creative process itself.

I see the creative process as more of a circular or cyclical relationship, rather than a strict linear spectrum. Yes, the approaches and tools may look quite different on the surface. But the core elements of intuition, experimentation, and emotional expression are parallel, even if the manifestations vary. That's what I'm most interested in exploring and translating between myself and collaborators like Thomas

~ Erika Weitz

Conclusion

Humanity's desire to comprehend and capture the unseen forces that shape our world stretches back many centuries—to times when the boundaries between science and magic were less clearly drawn. In candlelit laboratories, alchemists labored to unlock nature's hidden processes and pursued the art of transformation—turning lead into gold, chaos into order, and the invisible into the visible. While we may dismiss some of these early methods as primitive alchemic proto-sciences, the core aspirations are not so different from the motivations that drive science and technology today.

Science, the unknown, the unseen—these are all areas that have always fascinated me, whether it's astronomy, anthropology, or psychology. Wet plate photography felt like a way to tap into that sense of discovery and delve into the depths of what we don't yet know or fully understand about the world and ourselves.

~ Erika Weitz

Different mediums offer different insights into the phenomena they represent. Each new technology or artistic technique provides another lens through which we can examine and understand the hidden aspects of our world. This is ultimately the aim of CYMATIC: Patterns of the pentatonic.

Erika Weitz is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. With over 17 years experience as a photographer and 10 years in the historic wet plate collodion photographic process, she has pioneered new techniques to merge analogue and digital images into physical forms creating new and evolving forms of chemical light painting. Weitz has shown her work in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles as well as group exhibitions such as Scope Contemporary during Art Basel Miami and internationally in Korea, London, Paris and Berlin.

Thomas Noya is a multimedia remixer and visual artist from Venezuela currently based in Los Angeles. His work materializes and remineralizes digitally—moshing and kit-bashing datasets via generative algorithms, machine learning, and video editing. He holds a BSc in Digital Arts Computing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has participated in group shows in London, Miami, Caracas, and Buenos Aires. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Design Media Arts at UCLA.