Martin Klimas Try To Explore, What Does Sound Look Like

Martin Klimas  is a German photographer. He obtained his degree in Visual Communications from Fachhochschule Dusseldorf. “Martin’s photographs explore relationships with time, beauty and destruction. In each photograph, Klimas shows the transformation of solid object into one that is in between, a temporary sculpture that comes together for a moment, creating a comforting notion that something beautiful can be created out of chaos.”

In Soundworks, Klimas continues to explore the question, “What does sound look like?”, translating sound to a single moment that we can actually see. In SONIC , he uses well-known songs by musicians such as Miles Davis or Daft Punk. In Sound Explosions , Klimas uses original compositions. In collaboration with several musicians, Klimas asked that they create “patches” of sound using analogue synthesizers. The synthesizers—made between 1930 and 1990—are presented as to prologue the intricate vibrations of sound, which he animates with powdered pigments. Reflection, interference, refraction and diffraction: basic wave phenomena generate the differences in sound that we can hear as a beat.

To create the images, he places a scrim over the speaker diaphragm and carefully places the chosen pigments for the sound reaction. Then, using high-speed camera technology, he captures the kaleidoscopic chaos that appears when the sound begins. Each pigment abstraction will be paired with its photographic counterpart; a detail of the machine that created it.

The artist removes organized sound, or beats, in his series Pure Tones. Here he employs a frequency generator, outputting the most basic building blocks of music. Sine tones are used to stimulate the surface of water and Klimas photographs the resulting “standing waves”. Some of these photographs will be displayed as lenticular prints, giving the viewer a four-faced view of each tone.