Sol I
2025

What does light sound like?

Three spinning solar panels comprise a linear array that stretches beneath a fluorescent lamp. As its light strikes their surfaces, they generate oscillating electrical currents. This is no metaphor: the light is quite literally made audible.

As they rotate, they modulate how much light they receive, shaping the sound into pulses, tremolos, and spectral textures. At lower speeds, this creates rhythmic fluctuations in volume; as the speed increases, sidebands begin to emerge. Each panel's movement reacts to the others, their signals interfering and modulating one another.

Sol I draws sound from the ubiquitous artificial light we take for granted, revealing it not as utility, but as a tangible, expressive material - one shaped by movement, time, and space.

Collaboration with Toke Nielsen.