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Artist Matches Sound Waves With Their Counterparts In Nature

Turning jet trails into waveforms looks so organic we're surprised we didn't think about the connection earlier.

As the digital and physical worlds become increasingly intertwined, it can sometimes become difficult to distinguish the differences between the two. CGI is becoming scarily realistic, and 3D-printing allows a person with the right tools to literally pluck an object from the digital world and place it in the physical one. Art has consistently acted as a blurring point on the line between digital and physical, as evidenced by Ukrainian designer Anna Marinenko’s sound wave composites.

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Marinenko, “observed the aesthetic similarity between the oscillating heights of mountains, trees and skylines and the waveforms of music,” according to DesignBoom, and thus set out to compose a comparison that would highlight the visions she saw in the trees, buildings, and mountains around her. The way she lines sound wavelengths up with the stellar photographs of a mountainous horizon or the wake of a motorboat makes the comparison seem so natural, the viewer feels ridiculous for not making the connection sooner.

The series is more substantial than the simple satisfaction of pattern recognition, though. We wonder if the resemblance of physical structures to the virtual representations of sonic structures might imply a stronger connection between the physical and virtual existence than we thought. Could our world simply be waves, representing information? Information that we’re as likely to understand as a song understands a sound wave? These are the types of questions spurred by Marinenko’s work.

Even without the trans-substantial implications, the way that Marinenko subtly aligns the natural photography with the sound waves is irresistibly satisfying, like perfectly peeling a pineapple. The link between the natural and virtual world isn’t always obvious, but when you see it, man if it doesn’t look cool.

h/t DesignBoom

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