DO YOU FEEL STRESSED is an installation in which rising air bubbles create sounds in water, to form a soothing, mesmerizing soundscape that invites the visitor to watch, listen and relax. The sounds are picked up by underwater microphones and amplified through loudspeakers. This stress-relieving installation makes playful use of the scientific phenomenon known as “multiphase systems”. While multiphase systems can be found everywhere in daily life—be it as raindrops in the air, dust particles swept in by African winds or, as in this project, air bubbles rising through water—we rarely stop to think about the beauty of the interactions and the unpredictable complexity that they create. The tumbling and dancing of bubbles around each other, the oscillating trajectory each bubble takes in rising to the surface, coalescence and breakage, are but some of the phenomena observed in multiphase systems, and very beautiful to watch and listen to.
Mark Hlawitschka is Head of the Institute of Process Engineering since October 2020. His research focuses on sustainable process engineering, multiphase flows and measurement techniques.