# Cymatics (サイマティクス)

> Seeing sound as material pattern, beginning with Chladni's sand figures on vibrating plates: geometry appearing at each frequency — the oldest instrument for witnessing the correspondence of sound and form.

- IndexStyle No.426 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/cymatics
- Kind: Technique · Family: Diagrammatic Expression · Era: 1787–
- Mood: Technology, Exhilaration, Calm
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Chladni figures
- Standing waves in sand and powder
- A pattern for every frequency
- The directness of the apparatus

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Chladni figures
- [ ] Standing waves in sand and powder
- [ ] A pattern for every frequency
- [ ] The directness of the apparatus
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Spectrogram (スペクトログラム)** — Sound mapped onto a plane of time, frequency and intensity. From birdsong research to the DAW screen, the standard way of seeing the shape of sound — complete with artists hiding pictures inside it. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/spectrogram
- **Generative Art (ジェネラティブアート)** — Art that delegates production to rule and randomness, the artist designing the system. From Nees's and Molnár's plotter drawings, coded repetition and chance became the source of design's generative methods. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/generative-art

## Further study

- Chladni's experiments of 1787
- Hans Jenny's coinage
- contemporary sound-visualization artists

## Reference works

- クラドニ板の紋様（CC BY-SA 4.0） — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chladni%20plate%2010.jpg

## Source of record

- Exploratorium — https://www.exploratorium.edu/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/cymatics
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/cymatics/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

振動する板の砂が描くクラドニ図形に始まる、音を物質の紋様として見る実験。周波数ごとに現れる幾何学は、音と形の対応を目撃させる最古の可視化装置。

特徴: クラドニ図形／砂と粉の定在波／周波数ごとの紋様／実験装置の直接性
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。