Camera Lucida is a very interesting project by Russian/American installation and video artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand, developed in collaboration with scientific laboratories in Japan, Germany, Russia and Belgium. Camera Lucida (chamber of light or lucidity) is a 3-dimensional sonic observatory that directly transforms sound into light by employing a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence: "ultrasound, propagating within a liquid, triggers the formation and implosion of micro-bubbles that reach temperatures as high as are found on the sun, and emit light in the shape of sound waves". It all sounds complicated but it is totally mesmerizing, and simply said, very cool to look at. I really like the idea of taking advanced research lab equipment out of context and using it for artistic purposes. Not to spoil anything the authors have asked great minimal sound artists such as Taylor Deupree, Richard Chartier and Alva Noto to create the sonochemical compositions. The piece is released as a DVD on Line, a subdivision of experimental ambient, techno and minimal label 12k.

"Camera Lucida is a highly introspective immersive spatial art work creating a fleeting ephemeral materiality by intersecting ultrasound with hyperlight... in essence the creation of a sonic aurora. Domnitch and Gelfand's piece rejects any possibility to be fixed in space and time, but rather offers up the very definition of an unstable work of art, existing entirely for and within the perceptive realm of the viewer." Stephen Kovats, Director of Transmediale 2008". From Line's press release.