SONIC ARTWORK
Tidesong
Victoria’s practice-based PhD research asks what alternative ways of knowing might become possible through attuning our senses to the world of sound.
She was looking to create a location-based sonic experience based on tidal and planetary data, as part of a wider project entitled ‘Where I End and You Begin’. The result was a sonified art-work called ‘Tidesong’, experienced via a progressive mobile web app.
OUR ROLES
UX/UI Design
Prototyping
Web programming
What might tidal patterns sound like?
We worked closely with Victoria to evolve her sonic explorations into a location-based artwork that produces haunting melodies from tidal data as well as the earth’s relationship to the sun and moon.
Data Sonification
Each tidesong was generated using 3 months of location specific tidal patterns condensed into 3 minutes. The data was supplied by the National Oceanography Centre and the UK Hydrographic Office. High and low tides are affected by the ocean floor and coastline topology as well as the gravitational pull of the moon.
People could listen to the sonification of the tidal data from their closest tidal measurement location, or choose from 700 locations around the UK. Deploying smartphones’ motion sensors allowed for personal modulation of the audio.
Each location and time has a unique sonic signature
The web app collected Tidesongs when and where they happened, each a unique signature of that time and place. On the interactive map on the tidesong.app website, visitors could listen to and compare Tdesongs created by others.
Ghostly style
Victoria wanted the visual design to have a haunting or ghostlike quality. To achieve this for the key graphic, we converted a photogrammetry scan of a beach on the island of Mull into a sparse point cloud.
Accessibility in remote locations
We went through a rigorous design and development process to make the experience accessible in remote locations without Internet coverage, by building a bespoke progressive web app that could preload all necessary content.
Recording of the experience
Documentation of Tidesong launch, Victoria Evans, 03 July 2021
CREDITS
Artist: Victoria Evans
Production: Ray Interactive
Design: Brendan McCarthy
Programming: Sam Healy
Data: National Oceanography Centre and the UK Hydrographic Centre, with coding assistance from Colin Bell.
Tidesong was made possible through the support of the Creative Informatics Small Research Grants.