SOUND ART

The Sound of Earth’s Magnetic Field

An audio installation representing the planet’s magnetic field and its movements over the past 100.000 years. It was originally designed for a unique public square in Denmark, on which 32 speakers are dug into the ground and hooked up to a 32-channel sound system so that each speaker can be controlled individually. The system is called The Sound Wells and plays different content 3 times a day all year round. The Sound of Earth’s Magnetic Field ran from 24-30 October 2022.

For this project time series of data representing the field fluctuations at 32 different locations on the planet were prepared at the Technical University of Denmark’s Division for Geomagnetism. The sonification process employed is called data mapping, which means that the magnetic data is not transformed into sound, but instead used to control sound – kinda like a musical score. The magnetic field itself does not make any sound, since its movements are far too slow. Instead, a soundtrack was designed to give the listener the impression of a living planet in constant flux - an artistic rendition of the magnetic field. Audio recordings of organic sounds (e.g. rocks tumbling, wood creaking and breaking) were prepared and processed, and the movements found in the data were then mapped to different parameters of the playback (e.g. pitch, volume, speed).

The piece was created in collaboration with Nikolai Linden-Vörnle (aka KamikazeVildsvin) and Clemens Kloss (scientist in the loop). Read more about the project on the European Space Agency’s webpage, and listen to a 2-channel version on SoundCloud.

On Tour

In collaboration with the Finnish speaker company Genelec, a 16-channel version of the audio installation was on tour in Europe during 2023. Check out Instagram for photos and videos of the events:

• 19 June 2023 | CityCube in Berlin | On invitation by the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics the project was performed during the Closing Ceremony of their General Assembly.
• 31 May – 9 June 2023 | Vienna International Centre | On invitation by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs the installation was set up in the lobby of the Centre. (Read interview here)
• 23 April 2023 | Austria Center Vienna | On invitation by the European Geosciences Union the project was performed during ESA's opening Townhall Session of the General Assembly.

For the Berlin performance visual artist Kamil Czapiga (Cosmodernism) produced a beautiful film using magnets, ferrofluid, and other liquids.

In addition, a 4-channel version has been incorporated into a geophysical art work, Pas de deux de Neodymium et Praseodymium, by the Swedish artist Filippa Berglund. The work was on display from 4 March – 31 December 2023 in Silkeborg Bad’s exhibition Amazing Nature.

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