Category: Portfolio

Continuing on from my previous blog post, I’m beginning to recognise a correlation within all the ideas I have been having; The relationship between audible and inaudible. Various forms of the same things, received through different senses. In the book ‘Water Sound Images: The Creative Music Of The Universe’, the universal phenomenon of resonance is demonstrated as striations in substances caused by specific frequencies of sound. The phenonemon of these ‘Chladni sound figures’, more commonly known as Cymatics, are evidence of the naturally occuring materialisations of resonance. The author Alexander Lauterwasser claims that the cosmogenetic power of sound is a “primordial phenomenon of all oscillations, rhythms and waves” (Lauterwasser, A, 2006).

In the realm of bioacoustics, identifying animal communication has traditionally been very difficult. With the advent of artificially intelligent, machine learning applications such as BirdNet and Merlin Bird ID, the speed and accuracy with which birdsong, and even ultrasonic bat calls, can be identified has increased dramatically. If we are to develop a less place-corrosive relationship with our planet, understanding the nuances of our non-human kin might catalyse a decentering process of self-transcendence. Expanding on my previous audio paper that delved into animal communication, I’ve been thinking on how to create sound figures of animal calls in order to challenge our preconceptions of the natural world. Its an idea in its early stages, but I have been looking into similar experiments carried out by others.

The Cymascope Insitute have used Cymatic science to create a new type of scientific instrument, namely the ‘Cymascope’. “The basic principle of the CymaScope instrument is that it transcribes sonic periodicities to water wavelet periodicties, in other words, the sound sample is imprinted onto a water membrane” (Cymascope, 2020). In one incredible example, by using the echolocating sounds produced by dolphins to affect the water’s surface tensions in the Cymascope, they have made a breakthrough in regards to imaging from echolocation beams. Recreating the sound-vision sense of these cetaceans has now allowed the team at the Cymascope institute to recognise that dolphins employ a “sono-pictorial” form of language. One can only imagine the possibilities this holds for inter-species communication! Through their findings and experiments they have created a model in which dolphins can “not only send and receive pictures of objects around them but can create entirely new sono-pictures simply by imagining what they want to communicate” (Cymascope, 2020). It is evident then, that by visualising sound, there is the potential to overcome the biases that encompass our views on communication and bring us closer to understanding the world outside of our particular cognitions.

In an inverse sense, sonification translates the seen into the heard. Whilst this shift does not hold the same biological and metaphysical implications suggested by cymatic science, it remains similar in that it is a transference of one medium into another; A representation of the same element through a different sensory experience. Nevertheless, the dangers of misrepresentation here are all too easy when work is ill-defined. I have found some works that incorporate bio-sonification devices, while pleasing to listen to, falsely advertise their results, obtained within personally set musical parameters, as plant communication. I recognise the positive discourse that can be stimulated by collaboratively engaging with such biological processes, and yet I can’t help but feel that distorting a compositional tool as plant communication is a colonisation of bioelectric processes. Through this, misconceptions of flora are only maintained. On the flip side, when acknowledged as part of a wider compositional process, I do believe the art of sonification has the power to challenge our misconceptions.

In reference to my previous blog post, Helen Anahita Wilson’s appropriately describes her work ‘Linnea Naturalis’, as plant-derived music. In this work she converted bio-electricity readings into separate musical data tracks, which were then assigned to different instruments in an ensemble, depending on their own special patterns of pitch and rhythm. Using plants that cancer treatment drugs are derived from, the resulting music highlights these derivations, while allowing people to connect with nature. Helen’s ability to weave together various fields into a cohesive web is inspiring. In another example of her work, by making the inaudible sound of chemotherapy audible through carnatic Konnakol using numbers found on medical equipment, she was again able to link two completely separate elements to create a unique experience. The link between bio-cymatics, animal communication and data sonification might seem hard to make at the moment, but Helen’s work gives me renewed confidence that there might be something there yet.

Bibliography

Cymascope – Cymatics and the Cymascope Device for Sound Research. (2020). Oceanography – Cymascope. [online] Available at: https://cymascope.com/oceanography/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2024].

NPR. (2020). The Lessons To Be Learned From Forcing Plants To Play Music. [online] Available at: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/807821340/the-lessons-to-be-learned-from-forcing-plants-to-play-music [Accessed 27 Oct. 2024].

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Helen’s recount of her journey to the current moment was an inspiring tale of resilience and perseverance through creative mediums in the face of serious medical calamities. By combining her research in south asian studies with experiments in corporeal acoustemology and developments in biophilic and interspecies music making she has created, what I find to be, an incredibly interesting compositional practice. In her reimagining of hospital radio through repurposed and rewired chemotherapy infusion machines, informed by her personal experience as a cancer patient, her work ‘Krankenhaus Funk And The Extrinsic Death Receptor Pathway’ fuses Indian mantras and the poetic form Ghazal with field recordings made in the hospital. These elements were treated with disintegrative sonic processes moulded after the naturally occurring process of ‘apoptosis’, whereby programmed cell death occurs in multicellular organisms and some single-celled microorganisms, further contextualising her work as a disruption of the traditional radiophonic dynamic. The end result is a listening experience that encourages emotional resonance with a patient’s experience and perspective.

What struck me as most interesting about her work was the idea of ‘sonation’, being the compositional method in which the combination of sonic elements are informed by processes and dynamics found in other fields, as I understand it. I have recently been looking into ‘sonification’ as a form of environmental sound art in order to give carbon sink data a new perceptual dimension. Sonification is the process of converting data into sound to analyze, interpret, and communicate it. I found it intriguing that sonification was only the first step in Helen’s creative endeavours, as she expressed that, as a sole tool, it was not creatively satisfying enough. As a means of perceiving and consuming data in a new way, I definitely recognise the value in sonification, and yet as a compositional process I can also see how it might feel a little shallow, leaving most of the creative task to the whims of the data at hand. Sonation, on other hand, pays tribute to context in a more conceptual way. Whether this or the other is more effective, in whichever creative purpose, I feel is ultimately down to circumstance, intention and interpretation.

As I reflect on which direction to take my upcoming portfolio work in, the interplay between these two processes have widened my creative prospects. Over the last few weeks, inspired by the laws of systems dynamics, I have thought about using non linear processes to affect audio. In this sense I have been thinking on the art of sonation, but I suppose I did not know the name for this process at the time. Perhaps I could somehow combine my ideas regarding sonification and sonation in the context of environmental sound art to increase the level of discourse formed between the listener and subject matter. I realise I am being quite vague at the moment. Solid ideas and themes are there but I am currently in the process of concentrating them and figuring out my focus, which for some reasons always happens to be quite an existential process. Aiming for process based realisations, but my brain always has other ideas. Learning to combine process with an unrelenting, and most likely ridiculous, need to understand the ‘whys’ behind my creative choices might be the way I get the better of my current creative block.

Over the first few weeks of term I’ve been overcome by a number of exciting possibilities and ideas, and in this flurry I’ve become lost to the motives that brought me here to begin with. After speaking with Milo in my last tutorial, his emphasis on using this year’s work as an opportunity to set a positive trajectory towards my long term goals have helped put my aims into perspective. Over the latter half of summer I had the privilege of working alongside a conservation team of ecologists, gardeners and rangers to create a soundscape of the ecological restoration site, Wadhurst Park. During my time here I spent an immense portion of my time going on hikes, mapping personal sound walks, listening intently, sound journalling, organising files and field recording. These habits, while gruelling, have been invaluable in honing my overall field recording practice and this is something I would like to continue to incorporate into this years endeavours. Most importantly however, this experience placed me within a team whose ecological ethos gave concrete form to my personal realisations. Being exposed to their sustainable practices, stewardship of the land and attitudes towards non-human life has been an experience I am profoundly grateful for. I think often of how to offer a similar experience to others through my creative practice.