1.28.2019-2.1.2019
Purpose: to translate climate data into a piece of music which allows a new way to explore the changing climate over the past century
Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data. Auditory perception has advantages in temporal, spatial, amplitude, and frequency resolution that open possibilities as an alternative or complement to visualization techniques. (wikipedia)
Abstract
Faced with an American population in which 1 in 7 people don’t believe climate change is happening and 1 in 4 don’t believe it is caused by humans (yale), perhaps a new route into understanding is needed. One difficulty with understanding the changing climate is the slow rate in which it happens—one or two more hurricanes in a year and slightly warmer temperatures and higher sea levels are seemingly minor changes over a decade or two or even a lifetime. By condensing a century of climate data into a few minutes and “expanding the y-axis” so these changes are more representative of the potential impact, I hope to distill the essence of this problem into an understandable package.
The Plan
100 years
100 years = 10 minutes ∴ 10 years = 1 minute ∴ 1 year = 6 seconds ∴ 1 month = .5 seconds
at quarter note = 120, each month is one beat and each year is a four-bar phrase in 3/4 time
Temperature data
temperature data for 5 points (90º S, 45º S, 0º, 45º N, and 90º N) are converted to pitches in the F overtone series (but even tempered) and performed on metallic pitched percussion instruments (vibraphone, crotales, chimes, glockenspiel). Instruments are spacialized around the room with other performers between them.
Sea level
sea level data is converted to dynamic levels and performed on suspend cymbals and tam-tams.
Hurricanes
hurricane data is performed on bass drums during the correct “month-beat” and with dynamic corresponding to their Saffir-Simpson category.
Animal Extinctions
animal extinction data is performed on ??? (I was thinking bass drums a la Hunger Games cannon but the rhythmic clarity is needed for hurricanes) at the beginning of each year.
other considerations
fires/droughts
floods
tornadoes
should performers speak? (i.e. animal extinctions stating the animal, strong hurricanes being named, etc.)
All aggregated data can be found here
Additional note: I began this project by requesting data from the NOAA. Due to the government shutdown, I was unable to obtain this data from them until the government re-opened last week.