CYMATIC BERLIN THEATER
Theater Architecture Competition, 2015, Taiwan
OISTAT
OISTAT
"Dr. Erick Verlinde and Dr. Russell Humphreys claim, if both gravity and light are outside of our space-time, then our reality is produced by the interference patterns created as a result of gravity and light pushing against one another. Our beautiful, fractal world is just like cymatics patterns.”
- Rob Bryanton
Berlin Cymatics Theatre is a place to experience and visualise sounds vibrations, produced by certain musicians, DJs and sound’s engineers. The design is a direct result from the unique condition of the site Holzmarkt, the history of Berlin city and the character of the Cymatics performance. As placed on the line of former Berlin wall, platform connects to the river Spree with purified water system in order to give the sense of soaking in the river. It is meant to provoke a sense of no boundary between the spaces.
Since 70% of human body is water, barefoot standing audience is in constant conversation through the medium of water and sound, while vibration stimulates water molecules, our bodies’ correspondence to the same frequency as surrounding. Cymatics emerge when sound vibrates the water-filled platform, where regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of water. Different patterns appear depending on the driving frequency and are mirrored in the intensity of the sound output such as volume, speed or panning.
After lights go out, the floating theatre is moored along the river, so purified water system remains working, slowly brings back life to the river, as much as the theatre experience does.