Japanese artist and designer Kouichi Okamoto, and founder of Kiouei Design, has created a sound installation, called Re-Rain, that proposes a way for the immaterial forces of sound, gravity, and magnetic force to find a physical form. This installation is created with the sound of rain sampled in Japan early spring of 2015. The sound of raindrops hitting an umbrella are recorded, and is then played back from a speaker. The umbrella is set on top of a speaker, and the vibration of the speaker is transmitted through the umbrella to make a sound.
For example, an umbrella cannot vibrate if the magnetic force of the speaker is small or if the rain hitting the umbrella is either too high or too low in pitch extent. For this reason, this is a device picking up a state in which the magnetic force of the speaker, weight of the umbrella, and pitch extent of the sound, are all in balanced state. This natural phenomena, such as the way rain travels through and object and is emitted as sound to the air is what the designer wanted to portray inside a close space.
The installation is on display at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in Shizuoka City, Japan.
all images and video courtesy of Kiouei Design