The Quiet Ensemble, an artist duo composed of Italian sound designers Fabio Di Salvo and Bernardo Vercelli, create artwork that features the insignificant sounds that we are not conscious of. Their work aims to focus on the “greatness of small events”, drawing the viewers attention to the often overlooked qualities of everyday things. The subject of their most recent project, titled The Enlightenment, is a lamp that they use as stimulus for a musical event. Although the concept of listening to the “sound of light” might sound bizarre, the duo constructs an innovative means of turning light into sound. For the musical event, that was performed for Bologna’s Robot Festival in October 96 lamps were fitted with its own copper coil that received electric currents set at specific intervals, as well as a sensor. The currents produced an electromagnetic field that was captured and converted into sounds. Sounds can be controlled with the modification of the lamp’s electric output. Combining different high-powered bulbs and various electrical currents resulted in an orchestra of lamps creating buzzing sounds together. 

The duo refers to their work as a “hidden concert of pure light”. They explain: “Instead of violins are neon lights, to replace drums are strobe lights and instead of clarinets we will see theatrical headlights illuminating the audience.” Learn more about the Quiet Ensemble here. 

via Beautiful Decay