UNH Today

Underwater sounds look like the rings inside a tree trunk, wi-fi icons, fat tubes of ziti loosely arranged on a plate. At least they do in the work of artist Lindsay Olson, who collaborated with Jennifer Miksis-Olds, director of the UNH Center for Acoustics Research and Education, to visualize the underwater soundscape of sea life in the Atlantic Ocean. Last year, the duo joined forces on an ocean-based acoustics research cruise, after which Olson turned the sounds they captured using special underwater microphones — the daily migration of zooplankton, phytoplankton and the dramatic vocalization of whales and other marine life — into images embroidered onto panels of silk. Olson, who is based in Chicago, was on campus for four days in October to showcase her work at the Paul Creative Art Center, Morse Hall and Chase Ocean Engineering Laboratory. “The combination of art and science speaks to the humanity and creativity in all of us,” Miksis-Olds says. “Lindsay has transformed the complex technical dynamics of ocean sound into a thing of beauty.”