[ Sensonarium - imaginarium for sensing sound ]

Sensonarium 1.0 - a living instrooment study (2014 - )

What if you were a particle of a sound? If you could perceive sound as being inside of it?

The interactive sound installation Sensonarium is imagined as a representation of the membrane that holds a sound. Being inside of this membrane and feeling the sound, one becomes a kind of internal particle. Through analyzing microscopic slides, this work exhibits the visual structures of different elements (water, wood, pollen, earth, metal, tissue...). Further research examines different sounds and frequencies with cymatics, and then pairing up each element with combinations of sounds. As a result, visual images have their equivalent signature sounds, their air vibrations, their voices. The intended effect is for the spectator, while interacting with the installation, to feel these vibrations and frequencies being and becoming a part of their insides, becoming the atom. Elements’ interiors will thus feel closer to the spectator and become one with the nature of being.
The significent work on "Sensonarium" started developing during the residancy at Q-O2 (Brussels), in October 2015. The continuance of the research, that is curently ongoing, is taking place in I.S.I.B. - Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles. The process of research consists, among other, in examining images of microscopic slides of different elements (water, wood, pollen, earth, metal…) for their visual structure. Using the system of examining different sounds and frequencies with cymatics, examining their visual structure and then stacking and combining them, the resulted image of these combined sounds becomes equivalent image to an "image" of a sound, if we could see the sound under the microscope. These combinations of frequencies, sounds, come to represent the closest visual equivalent to microscope slides that will in return be assigned to each of the examined elements and become their signature sound, the voice of the element.
The paired element and its sound would be further used in creating a piece and small interactive installation. Upon triggering and manipulating the installation the spectator can sense the vibration of this element, and thus feel as if he became part of its voice.
Although small scale installations are being made, along with acquired results, a 1:1 scale interactive installation is in plan, which could welcome a spectator inside, for experiencing this vibration in whole, making his perception of sound switch from his hearing being the membrane within which the sound exists, to being a particle within sound.
This work was selected and presented on the CTM Festival 2016, in Berlin (Germany).

Sensonarium from Dejana Sekulic on Vimeo.

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