Water is a substance with infinite resolution. It is dynamic and ever - changing. The initial goal of this project was to capture distortion from water refraction. Putting an object underneath a container filled with water will be distorted once the water moves.

With this project i wanted to capture this distortion and transform it into another output.

I experimented with different outputs. Taking vertical data from the waves and transforming it into something else, like synesthesia. The connection between the tank and the sculpture becomes less clear but ultimately the whole object becomes more interesting.

Below are some concept renders with different outputs.

Finally the project ended up being more so about capturing wave height data and use it to make a low-res representation of it. Instead of a sculpture as the output i ended up doing a projection.

In its current state, the project is more so an expirement, a proof of concept, than a fully fleshed out project. Ideally it would capture real, organic waves instead of a fabricated one

Water height is collected with a rack and pinion rotating a rotary encoder. This data is then transferred and processed in Unity game engine.

The project has nine entry points to collect surface height (nine encoders) with a grid output of 25 points. By calculating an average value between the original nine points we can generate a higher resolution output. Waves are generated by two servo motors pushing two plates back and forth.

Rack and pinion for collecting the water surface height. The rack is attached to a floating polystyrene ball. The pinion / gear is connected to a rotary encoder which will translate degrees turned to vertical height.

Full process from ideation to final prototype can be found at the class blog. mathiasmediaart.blogspot.com/