water – Sensing Our World

Where are the wild ones?

Title: Where are the wild ones?
Artist(s): Kaffe Matthews
Source: TBC
Sense(s): Audio, visual
Issue(s): Environmental health of water

This project is a place-based study of the river Tyne, charting through sound and visuals the journey of the Atlantic salmon, and revealing material from the source, long the length of the Tyne, to its mouth. The work is presented as sound and video, and ‘will weave myth with scientific data to make new music’.¹ The installation therefore mixes originally composed music, with sonic data from the river, along with Environment Agency of the UK data on pH levels, temperature, flow rates, oxygen and ammonia levels in the Tyne. These multiple data points ‘were used to define melody structure and rhythmic quality’.² Along with these environmental data points, Matthews also included data on fish populations and mortality (ibid.).

This project aims to engage ‘audiences of all ages’ (KM site), in a place-based environmental narrative of the river Tyne. Its contributions therefore are in how it engages local communities on matters connected to an aspect of their local environment.

Plastic Souls

Title: Plastic Souls
Artist(s): Geert-Jan Hobijn
Source: Neural Magazine
Sense(s): Sound
Issue(s): plastic waste in the ocean

This work functions as an art installation and a form of activism in the form of beach litter cleaning. In this work, Hobijn created a floating musical instrument made entirely from reclaimed plastic beach litter. Furthermore, he created instructions for the replication of the instrument. When installed at a beach location ‘the waves of the sea will act as the musician of the instrument, which thereby also takes on the role of a siren and hopefully make people more aware of the disturbing trend of plastic waste on beaches and in oceans and seas’. ¹ Thus, the installation both sonifies the motion of the waves, and in doing so in situ, visibilises the kinds of plastic waste that may have washed up on that beach.

The project is significant, in that it includes several tutorials and documentation to enable others to make their own version of the work. It was included in the German version of Make magazine, a popular magazine for DIY/hacker culture. This acknowledges the global issue of plastic waste, and enables would-be artists and activists anywhere affected by plastic ocean pollution to visibilise, sonify and materialise it.

BioSoNot 1.2 / 2.0

Title: BioSoNot 1.2 / 2.0
Artist(s): Gilberto Esparza
Source: WMMNA
Sense(s): sound
Issue(s): river pollution

In this piece, the artist created a sound installation that incorporates sensor data from rivers. The sensors collected various data parameters such as the activity of bacteria in the river, river pH, temperature, amongst others. ¹ Concerned about the levels of pollution in Mexican rivers, Esparza wished to ‘sonify’ this data. To this end he created a machine that would turn the sensor data collected, into analogue signals that could then be sounded. Furthermore, the device also cleaned the water as it worked, providing an ecological restoration service as it was at once rendering manifest the pollution to an audience.