I argue that cymatic imaging processes are methods of artifactual data production rather than data collection and that the production of sonorous figures can be shown to be scientifically valuable when compared to other artifactual data production methods used in the past, particularly Alphonse Bertillons use of anthropometrics to organize police catalogues in the 19th century. By artifactual, I mean that the data produced through a cymatic regime are the result of the imaging practice, and do not exist in the world before they are manufactured through a contrived process. Cymatics, a mediating imaging practice, permits an enhanced visual access to acoustical phenomena that are typically only experienced through our senses of hearing and touch. Furthermore, the production of cymatic images allows both hobbyists and scientists to create atlases, visual data repositories, of sound, wave displacements, and other modal phenomena. Without the artifactual visual data produced by a process like cymatics, it is impossible to create image-based atlases of invisible phenomena like sound that show more than idealized graphics of a particular wave.
In order for scientific cymatic atlases to be created, the methods of production of a cymatic image, especially the frequency of the wave displacement and the media through which that wave displacement is being propagated, must be faithfully recorded and measured in order for viewers of the atlas to know what particular phenomenon they are observing.. Though cymatics has been studied in detail since the Enlightenment, Dr. Hans Jenny was the first person to accurately record this auxiliary data, which allowed him to create the first cymatic atlas that was useful to scientists.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04212010-191350 |
| Date | 13 May 2010 |
| Creators | Lewis, Stephen |
| Contributors | Josh Ellenbogen, Terry Smith, Peter Machamer, Melissa Ragona |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04212010-191350/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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