Small, unassuming, cheap. An eye with no brain to see with, but with a faithful readout nonetheless. Ever since Tainter and Bell's Photophone, people have been able to listen to modulated light signals, although it seems few these days bother. There is an alternative and parallel history to electronic sound production to that of voltage control and magnetic tape, and the photocell (a photodiode in this case) and its siblings are at the centre of it all...
Here's a recording of winter sunlight modulated by woodsmoke - it's the only recording of smoke that I'm aware of...
A friend of mine informed me that what we can hear is clusters of smoke particles which are arranging themselves according to partly chaotic and partly fractal principles. To me it sounds like it could be a nice example of Brownian noise, albeit even more spectrally limited...
I'm looking at ways of using smoke to synthesize and filter audio...more on this another time...
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