CYMATICS_ Science Vs. Music - Nigel Stanford

The most unusual part of making Cymatics was the fact that the music was written after the video was filmed. In 1999 I watched a documentary on ’Synesthesia’ - a disorder that effects the audio and visual functions of the brain. People with the disorder hear a sound when they see bright colors, or see a color when they hear various sounds. I don’t have it (I don’t think), but I have always felt that bass frequencies are red, and treble frequencies are white. This got me thinking that it would be cool to make a music video where every time a sound plays, you see a corresponding visual element. Many years later, I saw some videos about Cymatics - the science of visualizing audio frequencies, and the idea for the video was born. In 2013, I approached my friend Shahir Daud, a talented film director working in New York, and asked him if he was interested in collaborating on the video with me. I don’t think he really knew what I was talking about, but happily he said yes, and in July 2013 we started researching the experiments and buying bits and pieces online.