Searching...

A cymatics installation in which an AI watches vibrating water and searches aloud for beauty.

A petri dish of water sits inside a small perspex cube on a dark plinth, lit from above by a concealed ring light around a downward-facing camera lens. A hidden speaker beneath the dish vibrates the water into standing waves. On a nearby wall, a projection shows the system's live view of the surface, overlaid with a short, uncertain phrase, the AI's own words, asked to search or beauty in what it sees. Searching... treats the water as a natural computation and the software as a translator attempting to read it, while quietly noticing how willingly we hand judgement to systems not built to make it. It runs as a closed loop: water vibrates, the camera watches, the AI describes and speaks, a new frequency is chosen, and the water responds.