Process

We started by acquiring a projector, some cups (which would hold the water), and source material to play through the projector. The first challenge was getting the image to distort in a meaningful way. This was both solved by using cups that were molded with a pattern and disturbing the water with some scrap wood adapted into stirring rods. To make sure that the presence of water actually had an effect on the projected image, we tested both an empty pattern cup and a full one. The full one seemed to focus the light, as well as distort it further, proving that the presence of water indeed had an effect on the projected image. Our final approach also had an added effect on the area of the table immediately past the glass of water, where any small disturbance would cause a rapid movement and distortion of light. In some cases this looked a bit violent, so we decided to try to get rid of it, but failed. Another challenge was achieving proper positioning of all of the equipment so that no part of the projected image would bypass the "distortion filter" that was the glass of water. This was overcome with time and fine adjustments to the layout. We also had the idea of using transducers to generate low frequency sounds that would disrupt the surface of the water, but that approach never materialized, as none of us had worked with transducers or a programming language known as SuperCollider. Lastly, the original idea of using static electricity to bend a flow of water was rejected due to potential complexity.