iMAL

30 Quai des Charbonnages
Koolmijnenkaai, 1080 Brussels
Art Center for Digital Cultures & Technology

Floris Vanhoof — Soap Bubbles

Floris Vanhoof
Soap Bubbles

A laser shines through soap bubbles and 2 diodes listen to the lightwaves that are bend through the ever changing surfaces. Bursting bubbles make dynamic pops and photons diffracted through microscopic movements of liquid soap make glissandi.

How the sound is picked up

An LED (light-emitting diode) emits light when an electrical current passes through. Here this process is reversed and the diode detects light. When light shines onto the diode, the current passes through (in the opposite direction) and we hear the amplified current.

How the light diffracts

Light travels through space as a wave. When a wave travels through a medium, certain random variations of that medium can cause the wave to spread out. This changes with time as the bubbles age and thin.

When the mediums random structure is larger than the lasers wavelength, nonlinear optical phenomena, sometimes not unlike the recently discovered "branched flow of light" can be seen and heard.

Floris Vanhoof

Floris Vanhoof combines homemade musical circuits and abandoned projection technologies for installations, expanded cinema performances, films and music releases.
Translating the one medium to the other to find how our perception operates and which new perspectives appear.

Part of my practice is to carefully dose sounds and visuals.
Considering how much to show or let hear and what to omit.
Subtly overloading our perception so our imagination goes to work.
Looking inside and outside.
Creating small problems that put big ones into context.

IF 2024/1