Federico Murgia, Frank Mohr Institute

First, I am going to present a room with several works: a Pitch Black Room with different light/sound sculptures, where all the artworks complete each others creating an immersive experience for the public. Inside this room, the spectator will find a synthesis of my artistic process, which should show how I deeply analysed the structure of sound and light, eventually interpreting them as art media. The Pitch Black Room will not aim to be a collection of single artworks; it should be a single, complete and immersive experience where perception and physical phenomena play a key role for the process of interpretation. 
Second, probably in a off spot of the graduation show, I am going to show also “ Sound and Light Column”, the previous project I developed: a line of 8 meter high manipulated by sound and light. I used to present this project in combination with abstract fluorescent drawing, but now I am developing a system in order to show it outside in a public space, as a light sculpture. That is the reason why I decided to have it off spot from the Pitch Black Room. 
“Sound and Light Column” involves perception of sound in a visual way; it can be described as a sound composition made tangible through the relation with colour, movement and pattern in a physical way. It works as an hybrid analog/digital oscilloscope, trying to translate in something perceivable the lower range of audible frequencies. 
Video of sound and light column 

“Sound and Light Column” speaker, string, strobe lights, fluorescent tape, 2015 

In the Pitch Black Room I will install various works: light and sound sculptures and some abstract drawing, all connected with physical phenomena and manipulation of perception. They all involve the stroboscopic effect which allowed me to enlighten certain behaviours of materials in relation to sound and noise. The first prototype involved the relation between analog and digital noise: a single frequency makes small, light polystyrene balls, moving in a apparently chaotic way but producing acoustically and visually a “digital experience”. The decomposition process of the white light in RGB layers plays a key role in this particular 
use of the stroboscopic effect. 

About the second prototype, it involves the relation between movement and sound: a rotating string looks like a still wave and the ball rotating at the bottom produces a sound on the edge of chaos when hitting the metal container. I am still developing this prototype, thinking how to re-reed the shape of the visual wave to transform it in actual sound wave. On the video I linked at the end with the collection of prototypes is also present some different possibility of the wave pattern with the same set up, which I will also translate to sound later. 

The third prototype explores the relation between noise and water, like how sea waves sound like white noise when they hit the beach. In this prototype, when they hit the thin plastic container, small polystyrene balls produce a sound that is equivalent to rain, and thanks to the light this “rain” goes against physics, upside down. 

The fourth prototype is the product of a research about visual and sound pattern: it tries to relate the behaviour of water drops to Noise Music composition. Once again thanks to the stroboscopic effect it is possible to enlighten a certain kind of movement and to find a musical structure in the apparent randomness of running water. Also this project is still in development, since I am trying to re-transform the visual textures into sound in an organic and not forced way. 

“Murgia prefers to think of his work as in-between sound and visual in the grey area of cognitive perception: on this sense he wants to create experience rather than objects, even when he used classic media such as photography, printmaking or drawing.” 

Pitch black room prototype video: