After finishing Trapcode Tao I wanted to take a break from coding for a bit so I revived an old project of mine; working with ferrofluids and making them react to audio. Here's the end-result of the first experiment:

The awesome music used here is by Arca : https://soundcloud.com/arca1000000/uenqifjr3yua

I've been developing my method for a long time, but I haven't been able to test it properly until now. In order to move the ferrofluid an electromagnet is used. It's driven by a regular audio-amplifier. That works OK, the fluid splats around with the audio but it's really hard to see any of the beautiful patterns in the magnetic fluid because they disappear so fast. So I thought a slow-motion capture might work better. I've finally got my hands on a camera that can do decent slow-motion (Sony RX-100 IV).

Experimental setup. Sony RX-100 IV capture in HFR mode.

To make this shot, the audio was pre-sped up 10x and then the fluid shoot with 10x slow-motion while being affected by the audio signal sent to the electromagnet. Then on the video I added back the track at normal speed so it matches ip. This is the first test I've done so far. And while there is definitely room for improvement I'm really excited about the result. Here is the raw footage:

The powerful light source needed for the slow-motion capture heats up the ferrofluid so much it starts to smoke really quickly. I'll try and get some cooler light-source (LED maybe?) and there are many experiments to be made with exactly how the audio is pre-processed. Ideally this should be shot with a proper slow-motion camera like a Phantom.

The awesome music used here is by Arca : https://soundcloud.com/arca1000000/uenqifjr3yua

I want to try some different music/audio. If you have any ideas for a track that would work, or if you have made some music yourself that would work, let me know! Email: peder.norrby (at) gmail (dot) com.