In a fantastic melding of art and audio visualization, two Dutch artists have created a 3D ceramics printer which translates sound and music into textures in clay vessels. In their “Solid Vibration” project, spatial sound designer Ricky van Broekhoven and designer Olivier van Herpt mounted a powerful speaker beneath a platform on which lines of clay are laid down by a ceramic print head. Different frequency notes translate into large and small wiggles in the lines of clay.

These are vessels absolutely infused with the image of sound.

While this first video uses deep pulsing audio to produce repetitive patterns, we’d love to see future ceramics made with familiar music. How would a vase made with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” compare to Fatboy Slim’s “Rockafeller Skank?” What if you could buy your favorite song permanently memorialized in clay?

Tweet