Sound the Deep Waters

Josh Miller & Angela Fraleigh

Allentown, PA

Sound the Deep Waters is a projection-based art installation that invites visitors to submit secret messages that are translated into Victorian flower language before their eyes. Participants can scan a QR code onsite to submit anything from love letters and prose to inside jokes. Visitors will watch the screens in front of them as their private words become bold, brilliant, larger-than-life floral compositions associated with their messages’ meanings.

Pro Tip

Visit one of three identical interactive stations or feel free to stroll down the long walk and observe! Each station controls a grouping of three windows.

Inside the Installation

Materials: digital projectors, screen, custom software

  1. In the Victorian era, flowers were used to send silent messages and each flower was assigned a particular meaning. Feelings that could not be proclaimed publicly could be expressed through flowers.

  2. Behind the scenes, our software maps word associations to botanical illustrations. There are over 16,000 words in our database and over 200 flowers. By combining multiple words, you can create infinite animated bouquets.

  3. The word mapping is based on a Victorian Flower language dictionary composed of primarily emotional states, both positive and negative. So if you input a phrase that incorporates emotionally evocative words, you will get a more complex and interesting bouquet.

  4. Some common words have more than one mapping in the software. The word “love” for example, maps to nine different flowers including acacia, angelica, rosebud, and sweet sultan. Consequently, every phrase submitted will likely generate a unique floral composition.


Artist Bios

Josh Miller

Josh Miller's teaching and professional creative practices operate at the intersection of art, design, and software development. Since earning his MA in Computer Science and MFA in New Media, Josh has taught courses in web and graphic design, video game design, creative coding, user experience, and application development. Outside of the classroom, he develops interactive installations and user-focused online experiences, exhibiting his work both locally and internationally. Josh has exhibited work in Malmo, Sweden, the Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea, and most recently, a 10-day light festival in Scottsdale, AZ attended by over 200,00 people. Miller is a tenured Associate Professor at Kutztown University in the Department of Art & Design where he encourages students to think creatively and analytically as they navigate technology as an expressive artistic tool.

Angela Fraleigh

Angela Fraleigh earned her MFA from Yale University School of Art and her BFA from Boston University. Her solo exhibitions include PPOW Gallery in New York City, Inman Gallery in Houston, TX, Peters Projects in Santa Fe, NM and James Harris Gallery in Seattle, WA. She has exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and has been the recipient of several awards and residencies including the Yale University Alice Kimball English grant, The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in Brooklyn, NY, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE. She currently lives and works in both New York City and Allentown, PA, where she is a Full Professor and Department Chair at Moravian College.