For 15 years, Erica Sellers has been obsessed with turning sound into physical form. The Brooklyn-based designer even has cymatic frequencies tattooed on her fingers. Her latest work makes that obsession literal: speakers wrapped in hand-cast silicone that vibrates and trembles under certain frequencies.
Erica founded her practice Studio S II in Brooklyn, where the studio draws from science fiction and subversion to create work that sits somewhere between beauty and discomfort. Her Suspended Organs speaker takes that tension and makes it physical, pulling silicone out from its usual hiding place inside electronics and exposing it on the surface.
“The silicone references skin, literally the body’s largest organ, which felt unavoidable given that this is also an organ as an instrument,” Erica says. “Here it’s on the outside, exposed, vibrating, and trembling when certain frequencies hit. It’s kind of creepy honestly, and I like that.” Photo courtesy of Studio S II
“The silicone references skin, literally the body’s largest organ, which felt unavoidable given that this is also an organ as an instrument,” Erica says. “Here it’s on the outside, exposed, vibrating, and trembling when certain frequencies hit. It’s kind of creepy honestly, and I like that.”
The speakers are fabricated entirely in Studio S II’s Brooklyn shop, where the team has access to a laser cutter. The silicone skin is completely hand-cast to wrap around the internal acrylic speaker box, requiring it to be flexible, resilient, and strong enough to be suspended and vibrate under sound. A custom laser-cut fastener system holds the speaker box together.
“The materials themselves are expensive, but the real challenge is getting all of these systems, soft and hard, heavy and delicate, to coexist without causing unwanted tension,” Erica says. “It’s a painstaking balance.”
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- The speakers are fabricated entirely in Studio S II’s Brooklyn shop, where the team has access to a laser cutter. The silicone skin is completely hand-cast to wrap around the internal acrylic speaker box, requiring it to be flexible, resilient, and strong enough to be suspended and vibrate under sound.
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- Photos courtesy of Studio S II
The speakers first made their debut at Collectible New York alongside the studio’s other work. Each set features internal components engineered by Silence Please: a speaker, subwoofer, and horn that Erica wired and connected herself. Making the silicone strong enough not to tear while keeping it soft enough to move required extensive trial and error, according to Erica.
The piece also builds on research Erica has been conducting for over a decade, living somewhere between machine-made objects and the body.
“Creating sound as form has been something I’ve been researching for about 15 years now,” she says. “I’m drawn to things that feel engineered but still vulnerable. The biggest influence was material experimentation. With Suspended Organs I let silicone behave in ways it’s not usually allowed to, and saw how sound became something physical rather than just audible.”
The time between concepting and producing finished prototypes took 14 weeks, all happening in Studio S II’s Brooklyn fabrication shop where Erica could move back and forth between design, fabrication, and testing in the same space.
“With Suspended Organs I let silicone behave in ways it’s not usually allowed to, and saw how sound became something physical rather than just audible.” Erica says. Photo courtesy of Studio S II
“So much of it relies on intuition, adjustment, and rethinking things mid-process, which would be almost impossible if these were made remotely,” she says. “We also have a laser cutter in the studio which is so fun to use and experiment with.
“No two speakers ever come out exactly the same because the silicone has to behave in a very specific way. They have to be flexible, resilient, and strong enough to be suspended and vibrate under sound while coexisting with harder materials without causing unwanted tension.”
