When looking at a liquid, besides colours, you also see a shimmer – photons dancing on the surface where they get scattered, an interaction between texture and light conditions. Homer describes the sea as ‘wine-like’, a reference not to its colour but to this shimmer effect. Even on a screen, light is never still. Filming the screen reveals refresh rates, moiré patterns, glitches, light phenomena at the edge of our perception. Light and sound behave similarly, travelling in waves that vibrate on a spectrum of frequencies. This is reflected in the term tone colour, used in music to refer to the physical characteristics of sound. We rely on these to distinguish between the same sounds played on different instruments. Like Waves Breaking Into Light plays with these effects to create a shifting environment where light and sound constantly dance around you.
Note: the video contains flashing lights and moving patterns, it should have a warning for people sensitive to these.