Chladni Scheme, 16mm, SOUND, 11 minutes, 2009

This film was shot in Super16mm, but is projected in regular 16mm. As such, a portion of image off screen to the right is reproduced as sound. It is a composition, an arrangement, but not one that is from seeing to hearing, or the other way around, but a composition for both of these senses at the same time. Its point of departure is a Frankenstein-like thought experiment by Emil du Bois-Reymond, wherein he postulated that, if one were to cross the nerves of the eye and the ear where they enter the brain, the eye would hear lightning as a loud boom breaking the silence of the night and the ear would see thunder as a bright flash of light in the darkness.

Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni drew a violin bow across the edge of a piece of metal whose surface was lightly covered with sand and visually demonstrated modes of vibration. This film inverts that scheme. Instead of seeing the visual beauty bound up in sounds, it aims to reveal the sonic wonder residing in images. Thus, the 16mm projector becomes a new, Chladnian laboratory.