______________________________________________________________________________ | File Name : PAINTVIB.ASC | Online Date : 05/22/95 | | Contributed by : Jerry Decker | Dir Category : UNCLASS | | From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 | | A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences | | KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187 | | Voice/FAX : (214) 324-8741 InterNet - keelynet@ix.netcom.com | | WWW sites - http://www.eskimo.com/~billb & http://www.protree.com | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| Can sound be captured as vibrations in paint? Some threads from Usenet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: blairp@iol.ie (Philip Blair) Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.acoustics Subject: fossilized sound Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 13:40:42 GMT Organization: Ireland On-Line Lines: 118 Here's a copy of the post that I made to sci.archaeology on this subject. The thread didn't get a very scientific reception there but maybe it will do better here. It was posted on or near April Fools day and that didn't help. Anyone out there with a background in real physics (I'm a broadcast audio engineer.) have a good contribution that doesn't require big maths. (i.e. numbers over 10 or any letters :-)) >In article: <3m0cdd$bec@detroit.freenet.org> al172@detroit.freenet.org (Joe >Pastorek) writes: >> >> >> In the Proceedings of the IEEE (Vol. 57(8), August >> 1969, p.1465), Dr. Richard Woodbridge writes about >> how he was able to successfully play back sound >> that had been "recorded" on paintings and pottery. >> For example, he was able to hear the word "blue" >> when running a stylus along a blue paint stroke >> on a canvas painting. Apparently the artist >> spoke the word "blue" while applying the stroke, >> and the canvas in it's frame acted like a micro- >> phone, vibrating as the paint stroke was applied. >> >> This was the only place I've read about this >> topic until recently: The February 1995 issue >> of _WIRED_ (page 138) talks about British >> journalist David Toop, who "notes the lack >> (until very recently) of fossilized sound for >> study by audio archaeologists". >> >> Has anyone heard any more about audio >> archaeology? >> >> nigel@seeley.demon.co.uk ("Nigel J. Seeley") wrote: >I am aware of one paper on this subject: >HECKL, W. M. 'Fossil voices', in KRUMBEIN, W. E., BRIMBLECOMBE, P., >COSGROVE, D. E. and STANIFORTH, S. eds. Durability and change: the >science, responsibility, and cost of sustaining cultural heritage. >Chichester and New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994, appendix 3, pp.292-8. I haven't seen any of the papers on this so I'll not condem it outright, I would have written an "April Fool" posting if I had not heard some mention of this before. Some things puzzle me and IMHO it's not possible, here goes: The first big problem is this "frame vibrating like a microphone". The vibration of a picture is never going to be linear in any sense, it would be all over the place, and any vibration that would be induced by someone speaking is not going to be enough to cause modulation in something like canvas. I know that it is possible to use a laser interferometer to de- modulate speech from a glass window or mirror, a trick the police/secret services etc. are prone to use. However for starters glass is very, very rigid and so it is probably quite linear or at least predictable in it's response to audio, secondly laser interferometery is accurate enough to measure the growth of a plant in any given second. It isn't some stylus being rubbed against a bit of paint. The next big problem is with the paint. Pour some paint out and shout at it hard as you like, you'll not make a permanent imprint on it. If you blow on it you might make a ripple, or a wave or even a bit of a depression but it will not hang about for long. Even assuming that the artist in question was putting the paint on pretty dry it's not going to hold a shape. Then the artist. What are the chances that as he made the brush stroke he maintained a steady speed? Let's assume that he makes a stroke 1 foot long and that (despite what I've shown) there is a way to modulate the paint. Then lets assume that the paint knows to modulate from left to right (say) as the artist makes the stroke, and that he says the word "blue" at exactly the moment he starts the stroke. We now have a line of paint which contains modulation which is not linear in relation to time. Maybe he was faster at the start, slower in the middle and then faster at the end again. So how are we going to decode that little lot? This is like the backwards messages on records which are supposed to have appeared as a by product of the recording process (i.e. they were not placed there by the artist but appeared by accident.) play almost any record backwards, at varying speeds enough times while thinking "BLUE" to yourself and I'll bet that by a miracle, sure enough, large as life the artist has recorded the word "blue" backwards on his record. My last point is that unless the paint dries infinitely quickly then (Even if modulation were possible.) it is just going to be modulated by the last wave form it 'hears' before it dries, if the artist says: B-L-U-E (and then nothing else until the paint dries.) Then the only sound encoded is going to be the very end of the 'E' as it will (Not that this is possible) cause the canvas to vibrate and this will modulate the whole paint stroke. Think of a tape machine, it applies record bias to the tape so the audio signal is recorded in the linear range of the tape. The physical characteristics of the tape remain constant, the magnetic particles don't all slide about and jumble up after the recording is made. The tape moves past the record heads of the tape machine at a constant, fixed speed. The machine does not go back and record over material which it has just recorded. I'll be interested in what everyone else thinks. Regards, Philip Blair. (blairp@iol.ie Voice +44 1232 863964 FAX +44 1232 869445 TZ=GMT) *** Nation Shall Peak Six Unto Nation. *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: spxhaw@thor.cf.ac.uk (Howard Wright \(Hman\)) Subject: fossilized sound Sender: spxhaw@thor.cf.ac.uk (Howard Wright \(Hman\)) Organization: University of Wales College at Cardiff Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 17:25:48 +0100 X-Mailer: Cardiff Computing Maths PP Mail Open News Gateway Lines: 26 In article <3na0eu$a2f@detroit.freenet.org> al172@detroit.freenet.org (Joe Pastorek) writes: | |A Dr. Woodbridge published a paper in the Proceedings |of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics |Engineers (Vol. 57(8), August 1969, p. 1465). In it, |he describes how he was able to extract sound from |a painting by running a stylus along a dried paint |stroke. Apparently the stretched canvas acted like |a microphone, vibrating as the artist applied the |paint in a steady stroke. The paint retained the |"modulation" as it dried. | Sorry, but I simply cannot believe this. True - the canvas would vibrate as the artist painted, but these vibrations are likely to dissapear in a matter of a second or two, whereas the paint would take around an hour or two to dry. To imply that the 'sound' of the painting is somehow captured in the dried paint is misleading. Howard ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.acoustics From: wolfgang@sunspot.nosc.mil (Lewis E. Wolfgang) Subject: Re: fossilized sound Sender: usenet@sunspot.nosc.mil Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 05:21:39 GMT Lines: 41 In article <12270.9505021625@thor.cf.ac.uk>, Howard Wright \(Hman\) wrote: >In article <3na0eu$a2f@detroit.freenet.org> al172@detroit.freenet.org (Joe Pastorek) writes: >| >|A Dr. Woodbridge published a paper in the Proceedings........ Hmm, I wonder. The canvas would be "driven" by the ambient sound, much as the diaphram of a microphone. If the paint were thick, as a paste, then it would tend to retain modulation, as does a wax cylinder phonograph. The paint brush strokes are analogous to the phonograph needle. I believe oil paints are thick and retain their texture as they dry, this being one of their advantages. An interesting subject, it leads one's mind to wander. Imagine being able to hear Leonardo Da Vinci burp as he painted the Mona Lisa! And given modern laser technology, I would imagine there are better ways to play a painting than dragging a phonograph needle over it. Regards, Lew Wolfgang ------------------------------------------------------------------------------