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Who would think a printer would inspire such beautiful art?

A collaboration between the ad company Dentsu London, Canon printers, and photographer/biochemist Linden Gledhill created these “sound sculptures” which use high speed cameras to catch tiny droplets of paint as they splatter under the force of sound waves. The resulting videos were used in an ad that celebrates Canon printers’ color quality, but honestly, who cares what they’re selling when the images are so pretty.

Gledhill gets extreme detail in his shots through his use of an ultra-high speed camera, which takes up to 5,000 frames per second, and a Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon EF 100mm Macro IS USM lens to get intense, up-close detail. He previously used the paint splatter sculpture technique in his “Water Figures” series, he said on Dentsu’s Flickr page:

I, like many people, find Water Figures almost compulsive viewing. They appeal to people in many ways because they represent a fusion of science, technology, natural chaos and art. Every image is unique and can be appreciated in all of these ways. For the scientist, who is interested in fluid dynamic or chaos theory, they capture the behavior of fluids in motion.

Hit the jump for more info and a video about the creative process.

To make the paint dance, he carefully lays out his paint droplets on a balloon stretched over a speaker. And while it looks like the droplets are dancing, Gledhill is actually only playing one tone at a time. To change up the action of the paint, he changes the instrument, frequency and volume of the tone, he explains:

Pure smooth notes create long tentacle like forms, whereas sharp complex high volume notes give rise to detached droplets which resemble planets.

Only about one in 10 of the pictures he takes are perfect enough to make the cut. Check out a video of the process below to learn more about how they made the magic happen, and read Gledhill’s blog post for more details.

In his other life, Gledhill is a biochemist at GlaxoSmithKline, where he works on diabetes and cancer drug development. In his spare time he likes to take close-up pictures of insects, plants and fungi, and as he told Dentsu London, he loves what he does:

I’m completely enchanted by the physical world around me and obsessed by its natural beauty. My career in science has magnified this feeling of awe. For me, photography is a way to capture this physical beauty and to pass this feeling on to others.

For more pictures and (much more oh-so-gorgeous) video visit Dentsu London’s Flickr page.

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Discoblog: Art in Space: Painting Created in Zero Gravity Sells for a Small Fortune
DISCOVER: Art That Breathes and Grows—Because It’s Made Out of Plants (photos)
DISCOVER: Plain Ol’ Paint Goes Hi-Tech

All Images: Dentsu London