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Further towards sonifications of elemental
ecological systems/relationships:
salt marsh ecology experiments in temporal
immersion and exchange
Michaela Palmer, University of the West of England
(mic.palmer@uwe.ac.uk)
Owain Jones, Bath Spa University
(o.jones@bathspa.ac.uk)
Our aims (manifesto):
To develop the concept/methodology of data sonification as an
experimental aesthetic, geo-poetic, and techno-scientific creative
procedure for making explicit the generative processuality of elemental
landscape/ ecosystems/ habits.
To continue our explorations of data sonification using the example of
tidal landscapes (inc. salt marshes), exposing differing qualities as forms
of research/analysis because they depend on translations from process
to process rather than from process to (static) representational object.
By focusing on immersion (sea covering marsh in cyclical rhythms),
exchange between ‘bodies’ (salt from water to plant and beyond), and
other micro and macro temporalities of process, we seek to develop
sonification towards a more elemental, ecological and experiential,
rather than a purely quantitative, articulation.
Thus sonification can respond to, and express, the great complexity of
ongoing ecological becoming.
What is sonification?
A sonification takes collected data values from a process and,
through various manipulations and recalibrations, creates a
time-based event that ‘represents’ aspects of that process
in ways amenable to immediate human perception.
Different from data visualizations, sonifications retain temporal
and performative dynamics within themselves as they play in time.
This offers the chance of analyzing and communicating processes
very differently.
The time-based nature makes data sonifications particularly useful
for research in spacetime terrains such as intertidal landscapes.
Sonification - a growing movement
Examples: Floodtide (Eacott) Living Symphonies (Jones/Bulley), Rob St John, …
The point(s) of it all (theory)
Links to process philosophy of Whitehead, James etc (See Massumi ‘Activist
Philosophy and the Occurrent Arts
“The fundamental concepts are activity and process “ (Whitehead 1968; 140)
Activity and change are the matter of fact (Whitehead 1968; 146)
We are always in the middle of action (William James (why NRT is basically a
pragmatist approach – see Jones 2008)
The ongoing moment is the ongoing actualisation of potentiality as what are
becoming past event open up future event. Always unique and creative
Neither potential nor activity is object-like
Neither object or subject : event. (6)
Wittgenstein??
Leaning to live with ecology – becoming non-modern
Owain and Michaela’s collaborative work 2010 - 2015
Papers
Talks
Workshops
Conferences
Bids
Websites
Excursions
(all weathers)
www.sonicsevern.co.uk
www.sonicsevern.co.uk
www.tidalsevern.org.uk
Realtime sonfication of tidal and weather data
Palmer (née Reiser) M. Jones O. (2014), "On breathing and geography:
explorations of data sonifications of timespace processes with illustrating
examples from a tidally dynamic landscape (Severn Estuary, UK)" Environment
and Planning A, 46, (1), pp 222 – 240.
From ‘The breath of the Moon’…
… to salt marsh respiration
Bristol Festival of Nature
salt marsh respiration
Plants are electronically excitable. They can display
action potentials (e.g. wound responses) and react to
environmental stresses such as salt.
Plant physiology explores this signalling, e.g. by
monitoring the Redox potential (the potential of the
root to absorb oxygen).
Oxygen is needed for plant development – “root
respiration”
Active respiration - active potential exchange at the root
Passive respiration - suction caused by leaf transpiration
The less salt, the more oxygen can dissolve in water,
which is during low tide. (Saltwater -> high tide to land,
Freshwater <- low tide to sea)
salt marsh respiration
But the salinity also depends also on the
location of the salt marsh (near river inlet?), the
lunar calendar (neap/spring tide) and the
rainfall.
Location and season-specific plant responses,
Cordgrass tolerates up to 32g salt per kg
water.
Important research in face of increasing salinity
of seas, rising sea levels, crop shortages.
sonification of tidal salt stress
on Spartina alterniflora (cord grass)
Moving on
A software artefact will be built that sonifies how
environmental changes affect salt marsh conditions in the
Severn estuary.
The artefact can run in several modes:
it can operate lab or field-based
it can sonify ‘natural’ tidal changes
flag up stress resulting from local pollution
or simulate impacts of climate change
Aim: a continuous real-time environmental data sonification
(for public broadcast)
• Focus groups
clarity of environmental patterns expressed as sound?
less analytical and more intuitive ‘hearing’ of sound?
maintaining listeners’ interest in the sound
⇒ Sound compositional choices/ strategies
• Public events
Can sonification -as an artistic and scientific endeavor-
strengthen psychological/ emotional connections
between a landscape and its inhabitants?
Bergson’s work on duration
explores how perceptively mapped auditory
displays, which engage listeners largely via
their sound intensities, may resonate in the
human psyche.
Duration, commonly used to express spatial
and temporal dimensions, also communicates
elemental intensities, which according to
Bergson allow one to grasp
the very essence of time
(Time and Free Will).
Thank you.
Michaela Palmer, University of the West of England
(mic.palmer@uwe.ac.uk)
Owain Jones, Bath Spa University
(o.jones@bathspa.ac.uk)