Nigel Stanford – Cymatics
2014 · Directed by Shahir Daud
1.1M Likes
Best comments
1.“When the DJ comes back from college with a physics degree.”
More comments
- 2.“'What instrument do you play?' 'Tesla coil.'”
- 3.“'All of the experiments in this video are real.' Does that include the cloning experiment?!”
The story
Cymatics is the science of making sound visible, and New Zealand composer Nigel Stanford built a whole song around it. Every effect in this video is a real experiment. Sand on a vibrating metal plate snaps into new patterns with each note. Ferrofluid spikes up on a speaker. A stream of water from a hose strapped to a subwoofer looks frozen in midair because the bass is tuned to 25 Hz, the same rate as the camera. A row of flames dances on a propane-filled Rubens tube. Then the Tesla coils come out.
Stanford had the idea brewing since watching a documentary on synesthesia in 1999. He teamed up with New York director Shahir Daud, they spent months on research and testing, and they shot it over two days in New York in December 2013, in the middle of a polar vortex blizzard. The music came after the footage. They used vodka straight from the freezer on one speaker because it looked thicker, the Chladni plate's speaker blew a fuse mid-shoot, the water tray overflowed and leaked, and the plasma ball on screen is a $20 toy. For the finale, a real Tesla coil arc runs to a stunt double's feet.
It was shot on a Red Dragon camera in 6K, released in November 2014, and went viral, passing 35 million views. Physics class never looked this good.
