Mariska De Groot’s “Stirred Mandala” is a performance and installation piece where she creates and manipulates sound using light. An oscillation is created by a fan in the ceiling. An LDR(light dependent resistor) is placed on the ceiling with the the light sources positioned on the floor below. Between them a fan blade spins meaning when the blade is covering the LDR barely any light gets through causing a signal to go low. The opposite happens when the light is not blocked by the fan blades causing the signal to go high, and thus an oscillator is created. When the fan spins at an audible rate we will be able to hear these sudden changes in light.

Using light to cause an oscillation and thus create sound is an interesting idea. When watching this video, we can’t really pick up the changes in light caused by the fan. To the naked eye it appears to be one clean image, but to the ear these oscillations are audible. A situation where the ear manages to keep up better than the eye.

Another aspect of this piece I enjoy is the indirect influence of sound manipulation on her physical movement. Because of the way the instrument is designed she moves in a way she would never move if she wasn’t manipulating sound through her body. So in a sense, as well as light directly influencing the sound, the sound is indirectly influencing how she moves. This intertwining of 2 modes of expression into one is an interesting concept. Listeners are also invited to play the instrument after her performance as well so an element of crowd interaction is also introduced which I feel is heavily important in the installations I want to create.