Elisabeth Pellathy

artist | Assistant Professor of New Media
Dept. of Art & Art History | University of Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama

My work is a dialogue between relations and process, field work and studio. I explore concepts of mapping, data visualization and often look for a slippage of what is and what we perceive. I incorporate tactile processes with electronic methods and use a range of materials to produce my work.

Sheltered Reverberations I
Sheltered Reverberations I
30in x 29.5in x 1.5in
plywood
2014

“Sounds, once generated, never die; they fade but continue to reverberate as sound waves across the universe.”― Guglielmo Marconi, radio pioneer

The artworks are a visualization of the human voice as a waveform. Two different voices are mapped in sound editing software. The images are then traced in 3D modeling software and milled on a CNC router. The waveforms are by nature, mathematical, as sine waves added up are hidden in every spoken word. By plotting the characteristics of a sound, a voice, we are able to pick out the patterns that mathematics dictates - finding order and beauty in what is often perceived as abstract.