LASER DRAWING see the Sound and hear the Light
Personalized modular synthesizer, sound and laser light, +/- 40 min.
Analog audio-visual improvisation by Alberto Novello aka JesterN
In 1815 Nathaniel Bowditch described a way to produce visual patterns by using two pure tones for the horizontal and vertical movement of a point. The patterns are known as Lissajous figures, or Bowditch curves. Laser Drawing interprets Bowditch’s work as a starting point to develop relationships between sound and image. Novello’s Laser Drawing describes the geometry of sound. Since sine waves can also be used to produce pure (audible) tones, it is possible to construct a direct relationship between sound and image. Enveloping the audience in synchronous sound and light information, the performance is designed to create a true synaesthetic experience where what you hear is also what you see. The same electricity generated to move the speaker membranes is sent simultaneously to the high-speed motor that deflects the laser light on an x/y axis, converting sonic vibration into light motion. Frequency ratios in sound, de-tuning and phase shifts have a direct visual counterpart.
Alberto Novello aka JesterN is an Italian scientist, composer, multimedia artist. JesterN’s practice repurposes found or de-contextualised analogue devices to investigate the connections between light and sound in the form of contemplative installations and performances. He repairs and modifies tools from our analogue past: oscilloscopes, early game consoles, analogue video mixers, and lasers. He is attracted to their intrinsic limitations and strong “personalities”: fluid beam movement, vivid colors, infinite resolution, absence of frame rate, and line aesthetics. By using these forgotten devices, he exposes the public to the aesthetic differences between the ubiquitous digital projections and the vibrance of analogue beams, engaging them to reflect on the sociopolitical impact of technology: what “old” means, and what value the “new” really adds.
He is currently teacher of Multimedia and Music Informatics at Conservatory of Padua and coordinator of the SaMPL, Performance Art Center Padua.