Printmaking
The Looking Glass
‘The Looking Glass’
32 x 45 cm
limited edition giclée print with blind emboss
Printed onto 350gsm Somerset paper.
The different eidophone designs have been drawn in the lower left part of the print.
The ‘Daisy Form’ above was created by Margaret (Megan) Watts-Hughes by singing through her Eidophone and have been re-drawn for this print with concentric circles using banknote drawing software.
The ‘Tree Form’ above was created by Margaret (Megan) Watts-Hughes by singing through her Eidophone and have been re-drawn for this print with concentric circles using banknote drawing software.
The green images above are further forms created by Hughes eidophone technique, printed here in pearlescent ink.
The Looking Glass
This print was made in response to the liminal work of Margaret (Megan) Watts-Hughes (the 19th Century Welsh singer and Philanthropist) who recorded her voice through a device she created, called the Eidophone on to glass plates, spread with a pigmented paste, with the resulting images of plants, flowers and landscapes. (These forms are known as Cymatics, from the Ancient Greek: κῦμα, meaning "wave”) Two of these images have been redrawn in concentric circles for this print reflecting on the observations that the shape of sound is spherical. The discovery of the ‘voice figures’ – never reproduced in colour and until recently considered lost – presents a unique opportunity to revisit and re-contextualise a liminal figure in historical studies of sound and the voice through historical and practice-based enquiry and recreations.