Part 2. Voice Figures - Margaret Watts Hughes
Who was the singer-scientist behind these enigmatic Voice Figures? When the eidophone was first presented to the Royal Society in 1887 it was met with both astonishment and wonder. The figures themselves allude to a cultural apotheosis - stringing together the disparate disciplines of physics, natural science, visual arts, music and theology to a single impression emanating seemingly from within a transcendent self. Through this resonance phenomena Hughes inaugurates the voice as a catalyst of internal creation. How is it then that even in her hometown of Merthyr Tydfil her name and works remain unrecognized?
Traces towards her relative obscurity might lie in her biography, her journey is one of assiduous religious devotion and of scientific exploration. Margaret Watts Hughes remained dedicated to a higher cause throughout life, abandoning a successful career as a soprano singer to care for the destitute and continue her Voice figure research.
