The Drop Tracer includes 35mm glass slide frames sensitized with soot and exposed to rain, photographic enlargements of the splash patterns made by the raindrops, and a video which allows the audience to experience the duration of the splashes. Falling on the soot-coated slide, raindrops leave traces which remain visible even after the water has evaporated. A contact microphone catches the sound of the collision.

The work draws from a method devised by the meteorologist Vincent J. Schaefer for recording raindrops’ collision with glass. When a drop of rain hits the glass surface, air trapped under the droplet lifts up tiny particles of soot that end up creating explosion patterns on the surface of the slide.