Time Chords
A Visual and Sonic Composition of Celestial Time
Time Chords is a series that visualizes and sonifies the overlapping rhythms of sun and moon across three years — revealing the harmony and tension embedded in time.
Concept
This work evolves from the Time Notes series and focuses on the idea of “layered time.” Using actual sunrise and moonrise data from Berlin between 2017 and 2019, the artist observed how each year’s temporal structure differs — particularly influenced by the moon’s cycle.
Method
For each selected month (April, June, August, December), the artist created drawings based on a unique score system combining the Circle of Fifths with a 24-hour circular time map. Three drawings (one per year) were printed on translucent paper and overlaid. They are displayed in LED-lit frames that reveal the visual variations and depth of time across the years.
Sound Composition
Each drawing corresponds to a musical score. The three years’ data were translated into sound and played simultaneously using the same instrument, forming a Time Chord — a layered sound in which harmony and dissonance naturally emerge from celestial differences.
Experience
By viewing the glowing layers and listening to the compositions, viewers experience the visual and auditory textures of time — both repetitive and irregular, harmonic and unstable.
Solar and lunar rhythms layered over three years.
Solar and lunar rhythms layered over three years.
Artist Notes
One day, as I was completing the third year of my Time Notes drawings, an experimental idea struck me. The sun rises and sets at nearly the same time every year—but the moon, it shifts. That shift might create something entirely new.
I compared the same month across three years, layering drawings based on daily sun and moon data. The sun’s rhythm remained steady, but the moon drew a different path each year.
When I overlaid the drawings and illuminated them with LED light, the layered lines revealed the visual depth of time— a quiet geometry of difference, year by year.
Then came the highlight: What if I played all three years of the same month together, using the same instrument?
Just as I’d imagined, the result was not repetitive, but rich. A soundscape of harmonies and dissonances, layered and experimental.
The daily rising and setting of the sun and moon became a month-long composition— transformed into sound and image.
This is Time Chords: the interplay of time, expressed through light, sound, and the most intriguing sound ever given to me.