Margaret Watts Hughes: Sound May Be Seen

Ethereal and enigmatic glass slides preserve the resonance of Hughes' voice in rippling, organic compositions

The acclaimed Welsh singer and philanthropist Margaret Watts Hughes (1842-1907) was one of many inventors of her day fascinated by the visual documentation of sound. Her "eidophone" comprised a tube attached to a chamber covered in rubber, or "diaphragm." Hughes covered a glass slide with grains of sand or coarse pigment, then saturated it with water or milk. By singing into the dev...