A Personal Research Statement (Illustrated)

The Augmented Tonoscope - Lewis Sykes

http://www.augmentedtonoscope.net

Reading Casey OCallaghans Personal Research

Statement encouraged me to write one of my own. Ive
since illustrated it with examples and links to online
documentation from my own practice for Tacit - a
new e-journal and blog dedicated to debating and
documenting new approaches to arts research practice,
especially those enabled by evolving digital technology.

A SketchUp mockup of
The Augmented Tonoscope
prepared for my PhD interview
Keynote presentation.

The Augmented Tonoscope

presented at BEAM 12,
Brunel University, UK on
22nd-24th June 2012.

Despite the obvious evolution from its early

conception, key elements - such as an analogue
pattern making device, camera, screen/monitor and
controller - are still central features of the instrument.

Towards the latter stages of my Ph.D., as my study has

become increasingly focussed and specific, I feel that Ive
been tripping up occasionally trying to communicate my
ideas effectively to others, failing to convey the subtleties
and nuances of my praxis to a wider community of Art &
Design researchers. While I appreciate the advice by one
of my Supervisors - that if Ive actually been successful at
developing fresh insights and uncovering new knowledge
in my field, then there are probably only a handful of
people in the world who really understand what Im talking
about - I think it is more than this. As a musician interested
in what sound might look like, I conceptualise my praxis
through the sonic lens of audition. This tends to locate my
rational and reasoning outside of the generally visuocentric
perspectives and occularisation of the discourse within Art
& Design theory and practice. Still, I believe in the virtues
of my transdisciplinary approach and want to share key
aspects of my research with a broader audience. So Ive
conceived of a mechanism which attempts to locate my
praxis within a framework of commonly held and generally
understood Art & Design language, using these terms
as reference points within a wider Art & Design terrain.
By identifying key themes and declaring whether my
research is more this than that - e.g. more abstract than
figurative, more temporal than spatial - Im aiming for other
practitioners to get a fix on my practice, so that they can
locate it more easily in relation to their own, see areas
of overlap or common concern and appreciate how my
position might compare or contrast with theirs.

I have both an artistic bent and an aptitude for science,

so Im engaged in that area of transdisciplinary activity
commonly termed Sci-Art where these practices
intersect and interact. Im interested in exploring
and revealing the patterns that surround us - those
underlying, non-explicit, innate motifs that underpin the
natural world but are frequently hidden from our senses.
So my research involves a close examination of a
natural phenomenon - stationary waves. When physical
matter is vibrated with sound it adopts geometric
formations that are an analog of sound in visual form.
While these effects have been noted for centuries they
are best described through Cymatics (from the Greek:
wave) - a study of wave phenomenon and
vibration (Jenny, 2001). Dr. Hans Jenny coined this term
for his seminal research in this area in the 1960s and
70s, using a device of his own design - the tonoscope.
So a key method in my research has been to design,
fabricate and craft a contemporary version of Jennys
sound visualisation tool - a hybrid analogue/digital
audiovisual instrument, The Augmented Tonoscope.

Some examples of the artistic outputs of my

research:
real-time
sound responsive
visualisations
and interactive gallery
of musical
installations;
performances;

The Cymatic Cello, performed

at UpClose 3,International
Anthony Burgess Foundation,
Manchester, UK, 26th March
2013.

a
nd live audiovisual
performances.
The Cymatic Adufe in Lisbon
- exhibited as part of the 21st
Century Rural Museum in
MUDE Museu do Design e
da Moda, Lisbon, 16 May to
31 August 2013.

short audiovisual
films;

Located within an artistic context of Visual Music,

the outputs of my research - sound responsive
and interactive gallery installations, real-time
visualisations of musical performances, short
audiovisual films and live audiovisual performances
- all attempt to show a deeper connection between
what is heard and what is seen by making the audible
visible. In fact Im far more interested in this approach
of audiovisualisation than the inverse process of
sonification - of making the visible audible. While my
primary focus is on sound as medium, I do aim to
create universal artwork in the tradition of Trahndorff
and Wagners Gesamtkunstwerk (Moss, 2013).
Yet since music is essentially an abstract art-form
my process is relatively unconcerned with the literal
depiction of objects from the real world - and so my
creative outputs are typically abstract rather than
figurative and representational. (Or perhaps more
accurately, even though my work reveals and depicts
natural phenomena such as stationary wave patterns,
since these are usually hidden from sight and so are
unfamiliar to the viewers eye, they may as well be
considered abstract.)

Documentation of a
performance with Ben Lycett
at Seeing Sound 3, Bath Spa
University, UK on 23rd-24th
November 2013.

Stravinsky Rose 1080p - a

v2.0 edit in 1080p submitted
toColour Out of Space 2013.

One of my more refined works that demonstrates

this approach is Whitney Triptych - Exploring
the counterpoint in J. S. Bachs Fugue in F minor
BWV 881 (tuned to the Young temperament) by
visualising the harmonically interdependent right and
left hand parts of the Prelude each as a Whitney
Rose pattern with a third, central rose displaying the
harmonic relationship between them.

My research has been leading me towards

fundamentals - to a reductionist, back-to-basics
approach to exploring the real-time, elemental
and harmonic correspondence between music
and moving image. I use the techniques of artistic
media to try and capture the essence of the
audiovisual contract - its inner nature, its significant
form. My work has no subject as such, the focus
is on the aesthetic experience of compositional
elements - with a preference for pure tones and solo
instrumentation, a minimalist greyscale palette and
a Euclidian geometry of line and pattern. The artistic
value of the work is determined by its form - the way
it is made, its purely sonic and visual aspects and its
medium. So Id argue that the artworks I produce, as
described above, are essentially formalist in nature1
as opposed to iconographical - the study of the
identification, description and the interpretation of
the content of images.

The Whitney Modality,

exhibited as part of WAYS
TO ESCAPE_, 2022 NQ,
Manchester, UK, 15th-23rd
March 2013.

A relatively early (and hence quite raw) work

that demonstrates my focus on the senses and
perception is The Whitney Modality - a digital
artwork that creates an immersive audiovisual
experience...The viewer sits on a bean bag, dons
a pair of high definition video goggles and holds
a monome a minimalist, ergonomic 64-button
controller in their hands. By exploring the buttons
and tilt of the monome they control the relative
pitches of two raw, electronic tones which are
linked directly to hand-coded, real-time, dynamic
animations based on an algorithm underpinning
much of the work of the pioneering, computeraided, experimental animator, John Whitney Sr.
Some of my early research in this area is also
outlined in a paper, The Eye Hears, The Ear
Sees, presented at the Listening symposium,
PARCNorthWest, International Anthony Burgess
Foundation, UK on 17th November 2011.
AT Tests - easing functions
- Demonstrating how the
various tweens generated by
Andy Browns Arduino easing
functions animation library
changed not just the way that
the SWG [sine wave generator]
moved between frequencies in
a series of subtle but distinctly
different portamentos to the ear
- but also a visible difference
in the transitions between the
corresponding distinct cymatic
patterns.

This documentation of an early studio test shows

that even at this stage of my research I was already
less interested in the patterns per se and more
interested in how manipulating the shape of the
movement between tones and their associated visual
patterns affected the transition. As an aside, it also
demonstrates my tactic of misusing technology utilising the ubiquitous tweening functions of motion
graphics to control sound.

Im interested in sensory multimodality (OCallaghan,

2013:2) and in creating artistic experiences that
engage with more than one sense simultaneously
- although my current emphasis is on audition and
vision. Reflecting on the oscillatory and periodic
nature of the vibrations that generate sound made me
wonder whether a search for similar qualities in the
visual domain might create an amalgam of the sonic
and visual where there is a more literal harmony
between what is heard and seen. So my work is
predominantly concerned with the phenomenal - that
which can be experienced through the senses rather with the noumenal - that which resides in the
imagination and inner visions. In fact my research
argues for an aesthetics of vibration and a harmonic
complementarity between music and moving image.
Im fascinated by how the interplay between sound and
moving image might affect us perceptually. So with an
artistic intent, I explore aspects of sensory-integration
- the blurring of the senses where each impacts upon
the others to create a combined perceptual whole
(Chion, 1990) (Macdonald & McGurk, 1978) (Shams,
Kamitani & Shimojo, 2000). While I do reference
aspects of Op art, also known as optical art, Im not
overtly trying to create perceptual illusion though my
work. I suspect Im looking for something more subtle
and fleeting as I try and find those particular conditions
under which an audiovisual percept - a combined
sonic and visual object of perception - is not just seen
and heard but is instead co-sensed or seenheard
(McNeill,1992). In this way my research is focused
on the perceptual as opposed to the cognitive - in how
we perceive the world around us rather than how we
interpret, contextualise and make sense of it.
Im trying to apply my understanding of the
philosophical nature of sonic objects - as
individuals located in space but with uniquely
auditory characteristics that change over time
(OCallaghan, 2013) - to look deeper into sounds
relationship with image. Im particularly interested
in how sound can interplay with the qualities of
visual objects (and moving image in particular) with
their characteristics of or relating to space. Key to
developing my thinking here has been the concept
of the musical gesture - of a shape created over
time through music (Gody & Leman, 2010). Either
through the physical act of playing an instrument,
or in the listeners imagination through the
structure of the music, or implied through a musical
metaphor. Shifting to this perspective has helped
me to appreciate that Im actually more interested
in movement, dynamic and transition than form,
pattern and resolution - in short with the temporal
rather than with the spatial.

Moir Modes v1.0, developed and performed with Ben Lycett

at Seeing Sound 3, Bath Spa University, UK on 23rd-24th
November 2013.

Made with the C++ creative coding toolkit

openFrameworks, this work integrates a Bessel
function within the General Scientific Library to
realise a virtual drum skin and display a series
of its vibrational modes. This is an ideal - no real
world drum skin would behave as perfectly as this.
The Moir effect - interference patterns produced
by overlapping two transparent grids of closely
spaced straight lines rotated a small amount
from one another - helps visualise these normally
imperceptible modes as the virtual drum skin
vibrates. Although Id conceived of creating Moir
patterns using my analogue tonoscope device it had
proven too technically challenging to implement, but
the virtual model allowed me to pursue this line of
thought and develop a proof of concept.

Whitney Evolved, 9-12th February, 2012 -Kinetica Art Fair, P3,

35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS.

Monomatic (Nick Rothwell & Lewis Sykes)

withNoise Machine (Mick Grierson),pixelpusher
(Evan Raskob) with computational design students
from Ravensbourne andTransphormetic (Paul
Prudence) present a series of real-time, code-based
audiovisual works inspired by, interpreting and
extending Whitneys animated films projected at
large scale onto the rear wall of the P3 exhibition
space throughout KAF 12.

Hans Jenny favoured practical experimentation over

development of a mathematical model - an approach
particularly relevant for a Practice as Research
Ph.D. project. Yet Im actually more interested than
Jenny in the scientific nature of stationary waves.
So I draw on derivations and formulas from physics
and mathematics along with key aspects of Music
Theory and particularly the Pythagorean laws of
harmony, to code virtual models of a variety of
oscillating and harmonic systems. I use the realtime computer animations generated from these
models to visualise music. In this way my research
is certainly more mathematical than free-form. Ive
also attempted to superimpose these animations
on top of the cymatic patterns generated from
the analogue tonoscope device that is part of my
instrument. This allows me to augment the physical
patterns of visible sound that appear on the surface
of the instruments vibrating drum skin diaphragm
with forms based on similar physical laws, but which
I can extrapolate and manipulate in ways I never
could with the analogue. So in this way my work is
more synthetic - an imitation of the natural world than sampled - a small but representative part of the
natural world.

Ive explored the artistic lineage of my research

by searching for prior attempts to find a visual
equivalence to auditory intricacies. Accordingly, my
main artistic influences lie with creators of early
abstract film and somewhat later computer-aided
abstract animation. Im particularly interested in
Oskar Fischingers synthetic sound production
experiments in the 1920 and 30s (Fischinger, 1932).
Using a technique of direct sound, of printing
regularly repeating geometric patterns directly into
the optical soundtrack of the film, Fischinger used
the photoreceptor of the projector to turn visual forms
directly into music and so explored a direct visual
correspondence to sound (Moritz, 1976). From the
1940s onwards, John Whitney Sr. created a series
of remarkable 16mm films of abstract animation that
used customised analogue computation devices and
early computers to create a harmony - not of colour,
space, or musical intervals - but of motion (Alves,
2005:46). He championed an approach in which
animation wasnt a direct representation of music,
but instead expressed a complementarity - a visual
equivalence to the attractive and repulsive forces
of consonant/dissonant patterns found within music
(Whitney, 1980). Exploring Whitneys legacy has
become central to my research.

I participated in the Designing Our Futures

The Writer as Designer/Designer as Writer course
- two seminars and a 5-day Arvon Foundation
workshop on offer to postgraduate and early career
researchers from May 2014. During Arvon I was
introduced to the idea of a through line within a
piece of writing - of the conscious theme, described
by the title, that runs through and shapes the text.
But I was also alerted to the notion of unconscious
themes - of latent ideas that connect thinking,
often revealed by studying extracts from seemingly
unrelated writing or paragraphs out of their written
order. The exercise of looking for these hidden links
resonated particularly strongly with me, helping me
to appreciate this might in itself, be an unconscious
strategy running through different levels my research
- of looking for those things that are present yet
liminal - concealed in the spaces in-between.

In building an instrument to visualise sound, Im

following in a rich tradition of scientific instrument
making whose primary intent was to extend our
senses to be able to consider that of which we were
previously unaware (Hankins & Silverman, 1995) to reveal the hidden. This process is reflected in my
praxis by attempting to be more systematic about
searching for the unfound through artistic process.
Im trying to find that small, (possibly) unnoticed
detail or never quite configured in this particular
way before set of circumstances that open up new
lines of enquiry and may lead to fresh thinking. I try
to court serendipity - to master the art of making
the unsought finding - not just in the hope of the
happy accident but to open myself to the latent
potentialities within my own creative code and DIY
electronic devices.
There are other areas I havent written about yet. My
work is more:
authored than improvisational;
literal than interpretive;
awe inspiring than illusory;
DIY than de rigueur;
and is concerned with:
sensory-itegration rather than synaesthesia;
form rather than narrative;
agency rather than the incidental;
the misuse rather than use of technology;
but Im not really sure if I should go on so...

Having declared all this, I have to admit Im not convinced this dualism is actually that useful a mechanism
to me and my own understanding of my work as a network of inter-relationships, connections and
congruences. My research doesnt propose a hypothesis based on deductive rationalisation of established
thinking within a discipline. Ive taken a hermeneutic approach - informed by the concept of systems
thinking proposed by Gregory Bateson and his notion of an ecology of the mind, of discovering the
pattern that connects (Bale, 1992) - by combining years of implicit practitioner knowledge with an
investigation into the lineage of my practice through the ideas, approaches and techniques of inspirational
artists, alongside select research from a range of outwardly disparate disciplines that seemed to resonate
with the study - from cognitive neuroscience to critical art theory. Divining a congruence between
these varied perspectives has crystallised a central argument to my thesis - of realsing a harmonic
complementarity and more intimate perceptual connection between music and moving image. What I think
is significant in the context of a Practice as Research Ph.D. study, is that since limited literature exists, an
empirical demonstration through artistic practice has been the primary approach to confirm the validity of the
argument. The practice has actually been the research.

Footnotes:
1. At least in an early C20th definition of formalism proposed by the Post-impressionist painter Maurice
Denis in his 1890 article Definition of Neo-Traditionism and by the Bloomsbury writer Clive Bell in his
1928 book, Art.

Sources (ordered to correlate with their first reference within the text):
Jenny, H. (2001) Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena and Vibration. New Hampshire: Volk, J. (first
printed as Vol 1 1967, Vol 2 1972)
Moss, S. (2013) A to Z of Wagner: G is for Gesamtkunstwerk. The Guardian. [Online] 18th April.
[Accessed on 14th July 2013] http://www.theguardian.com/music/ musicblog/2013/apr/18/a-z-wagnergesamtkunstwerk
OCallaghan C., (2013) Hearing, Philosophical Perspectives. In H. Pashler (T. Crane) (eds.) (2013)
Encyclopedia of the Mind. SAGE. [Online] [Accessed on 29th May 2013] http://caseyocallaghan.com/
research/papers/ocallaghan-2013-Hearing.pdf
Bell, C. (1928) Art. London: Chatto and Windus
Maurice, D. (1890) Definition of Neo-Traditionism, Art and Criticism, Aug 1890 - in Harrison, C., Wood, P.
and Gaiger J. (eds.) (1998) Art in Theory 1815-1900: an anthology of changing ideas. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp.862-9
Chion M. (1990) Audio-Vision: Sound of Screen. New York, Columbia University Press.
Macdonald J. & McGurk H. (1978) Visual influences on speech perception processes. Perception &
Psychophysics, Vol. 24 (3), pp. 253-257
Shams L., Kamitani Y. & Shimojo S. (2000) Illusions: What you see is what you hear. Nature, Vol. 408,
Dec. 14, p 788
McNeill, D. (1992), Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press
Gody R.I. & Leman M. (eds.) (2010) Musical Gestures: Sound, Movement, and Meaning. New York &
London, Routledge
Fischinger, O. (1932) Klingende Ornamente Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Kraft Und Stoff. 30, [Online].
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger/SoundOrnaments.htm [Accessed on 7 Apr 2011]
Moritz, W. (1976) The Importance of Being Fischinger, Ottawa International Animated Film Festival
Program, 2-6. [Online]. http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/library/ImportBF.htm [Accessed on 10 March
2011]
Alves, B. (2005) Digital Harmony of Sound and Light. Computer Music Journal, 29(4) pp. 45-54.
Whitney, J. (1980) Digital Harmony: On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art. Peterborough,
N.H.: McGraw-Hill
Hankins T.L. & Silverman R.J. (1995) Instruments And The Imagination. New Jersey: Princeton University
Press
Bale L. S. (1992) Gregory Batesons Theory of Mind: Practical Applications to Pedagogy. [Online]
[Accessed on 7th May 2013] http://www.narberthpa.com/Bale/ lsbale_dop/gbtom_patp.pdf