Cry Prints

2022 / Installation / Print Japanese paper / Music stand

Cry Prints is a work in progress and collection of sonograms of screams. Sonograms, a form of acoustic diagrams with three dimensions: frequency vertically, time horizontally and intensity via severity.

Crying activity has been studied as an index of infant well-being at birth, as a reflection of the physiological and emotional state of the baby. The research is now considered outdated, but Lombard's curiosity was piqued. Here, sonograms serve as a kind of symbol of the unknown in human beings.

In sonograms, the scream takes on another dimension, the sonograms are silent and resemble more abstract maps or projection surfaces to fill. They are ghostly and unidentifiable, yet they have a connection to a real infant and its cry, even though the human imprint is long gone.