Mark Rosin

In Visualzing Vibrations, the image of a block of colored lights is reflected in a drop of vibrating water. The soundtrack, Canon in D by Pachelbel provides both a musical accompaniment and, via a loudspeaker on which the water sits, is the source of the vibrations. The wave patterns produced by the vibrations are known as Faraday Waves, and have been the subject of intense research for over one hundred and fifty years. In the songs’ quieter moments, the subharmonic response of Faraday Waves to the musical forcing are realized as circularly symmetrical Bessel functions, whose wavelength scales with the notes' pitch. In its louder moments, the non-linear parametric instability (Faraday Waves) descends into chaotic, turbulent behavior. Both the form of the music, and the patterns visualized by the sound, manifest themes of symmetry. The music through its cannon structure, and the Faraday Waves through their n-fold rotational symmetries and quasi-periodic patterns.