Chladni rebuild 2022
While he was an artist in residence at the Laboratorio Arte AC in Tecnologico de Monterrey, Daniel Lara Ballesteros experimented with the ‘Chladni plates’. It consists of placing a granular substance on a metal plate that is fixed in the centre. When subjected to vibrations, the substance forms characteristic patterns known as “Chladni figures”.

The vibrations on the plates produce standing waves, which have the peculiarity of having areas of zero vibration (nodes) and areas of maximum vibration amplitude. When the plate vibrates, the salt displaces by gravitational action to the zero vibration zones, which makes it possible to visualise the nodes. Different sound frequencies induce different vibration modes, so the patterns on the plate take different shapes, such as straight lines, circles, squares, and rings.

Through photography, the artist studied the formation of these patterns, combined them with each other and created sculptural figures through 3D modeling software.