A drawing machine reacts to sound and moves across the paper affected by its frequency; it creates an image in response to a tone produced by a musical instrument. Inspired by the function of a needle on a vinyl record, the marker vibrates, drawing the rhythms in circular paths on the paper that rotates underneath.
Segal connects the musical and the visual via the ‘Meshalya’, the opening overture characteristic of Andalusian music. She plays recordings of each of the ‘Meshalya’s’ performers to her drawing machine - Sahar David on nai (flute), Yohai Cohen on oud, and Elad Levi on violin, viola, and high-octave violin. The sound produced by each musician, in itself an interpretation, is visually interpreted by the machine, as well as by the artist.
Segal creates an audio-visual archive. Some drawings trace a single instrument, while others visualize the combined sound of all the instruments in unison.
In seismology, the Epicenter is the point on Earth's surface directly above the origin of an underground motion during an earthquake. Segal’s machine senses and draws the effects of the musicians’ actions. The machine reacts to the instruments, as well as to the artist’s inner voices. Segal explores the tension between harmony and disharmony, between synchronicity and lack thereof. She does not aim for a precise recording of the sound. Instead, she invites
disturbances into the work by altering the way the machine translates the sound. By adjusting the density and the sensitivity of the marker she adds her interpretation to the drawing, filtering the sounds through her own consciousness.
In addition to Epicenter, Segal explores drawing and painting machines in works such as This is Not a Typewriter, Originals Factory, Random Walk 2.0, Plate Recorder, and Heart for the Tin Man.