Julia Daser
The Movement of Sound
Class of: 2026
Major: Design and Technology BFA
Medium: Laser-cut acrylic sheets, metal, circuit playground board coded with JavaScript
Faculty: Natalia Zubko
Prompt: Creating an abstract 3D sculpture represents how we see ourselves and how others see us, using two words as examples.
Because everyone judges people based on their own experience, there is a significant glitch between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. By combining abstract representations of the character traits “determined” and “affectionate”, the interactive 3D sculpture visualises how enormously subjective perception is. By plasma-cutting metal plates, the character trait “determined” is represented by the sharp corner in the sculpture. Organically shaped, intersecting acrylic sheets of different colors resemble interacting people and thus represent the verb “affectionate”. To underline the concept of interaction and juxtapose the metal sheets’ rigidness, a rotating element changes the shapes and relative positions of the acrylic sheets. The motor that causes the rotation of the sheets is controlled by a circuit playground board. Using Javascript, I created an interactive sound experience in which the motor’s rotation speed is governed by the environment’s noise levels measured at an interval of 500ms. The louder the sculpture’s surroundings, the slower the motor rotates until it comes to a complete stop at 80dB. The impact sound levels have on the rotation speed represents the difficulty I have of opening up and connecting with people in a loud, overwhelming environment.