electrochemical composition + DIY electronics

Below are two electronic devices I recently built in order to compose, record and incorporate (play back) electrochemical sound on the incubator I'm building for my biotextiles. 

Electrochemical Sound Generator (without the chemicals).

A Wave Shield for emitting the electrochemical sounds I've recorded.

The electrochemical sound idea (and the prototype for the first electronic device) came out of a workshop I attended at Eastern Bloc with Erin Sexton. Erin designed the schematic for the device and during the workshop we learned how to use our prototypes. We generated modulations (sometimes harmonious and usually cacophonous) and improvised with the sounds created when you plug that thing in to both a power source and a crystal chemical solution (magnesium sulfate, or Epsom salts). The results are a process of electrolysis that is facilitated by the current running through the solution. Below are photos of my work with hooking my permanent device up (one that I soldered together on a perma-prototype breadboard) to a converter and a recorder in order to record an improv session I did at home. What I ended up with was a sweet .wav file about 16 minutes long.

My device with the converter and recorder.

Wires from the device are dunked into the solution and moved around, or pulled out together or apart.

 We don't think of liquids and electricity mixing, but here I'm mixing them!

Concentrating very hard on the subtle variations in sound I'm able to make.

The headphones allow me to monitor the sound as its being generated.

Different wires add different variables of sound.

The Wave Shield was my most complicated electronic device to date but a great learning opportunity for practicing my soldering, wiring, and programming skills (well, there's not much to program since the code is already created by Adafruit). But, getting it to work is still an accomplishment for someone who has *never* built electronics before in her life. The Wave Shield plays .wav files and it can be plugged into either headphones, speakers, amps or a combination of those things. Below is a sample recording (not the final sounds I'll be using) of an electrochemical composition I sampled. Be prepared for pain when listening to it. The sound is analogous, in my mind, to the sound of brain cell communication, which is also done through electrochemical transmission. So, imagine, that this is the sound of cells talking.