Drew Browning and Annette Barbier
Installation for Performing the Imagination
May 1, 2004
Location: foyer, Louis Hall

Wave Harmonies (originally titled Waiting in Line) engages the audience - individual interactor or group of participants - in the creation and manipulation of waveforms displayed as Lissajous figures. Lissajous figures are graphic representations of the interaction of two periodic waveforms. A figure is constructed on the screen by modulating the position of a point in space both horizontally and vertically. If the two frequencies are equal to or multiples of one another, they produce visual harmonics resulting in organized patterns. In our interpretation of this principle, the audience uses colored cards to control the horizontal and vertical motion of a point moving on a screen. Through this installation, participants engage in working with a principle basic to the organization of matter and energy. A secondary but no less interesting characteristic of the work is its social aspect. The camera view (from telephoto to wide angle) will be varied from time to time. At times, a single participant may be able to fill the screen with a color, and thus assume full responsibility for the patterns created. At other times, participants will have to work together to achieve the same level of control (exerted by amount of red or blue color in the camera's view), thus engaging in some level of interactivity with one another.

Wave Harmonies was originally commissioned (under the title Waiting in Line) by the Museum of Science and Industry for their summer 2003 performance/installation series Experiments in Science and Art.