“Diatomic Variations: The Occurrence of Sounds From the Fossilized Past”
Interactive Sound Sculpture, Sound Installation, Copper, Steel, Glass, Raspberry Pi, Plastic, Electronic Sensors, Wood, Data Analysis of Soil…. 6’x8’x4’ Collaboration with Nooshin Hakim Javadi and Rodrigo Cadiz, 2024.
In collaboration with Nooshin Hakin Javadi and Rodrego Cadiz, this project, funded by the Luksic Joint Scholar award ($50k, 2022-2023) and Flagship award ($10K, 2023), began with soil samples drawn from the Great Lakes region's supersites. By studying pipeline control stations and their failures to prevent oil leaks on Indigenous treaty lands, we created an interactive sound sculpture/instrument that replicates an oil station control system. The instrument uses the data as a scaling reference, similar in principle to frets on a guitar, to shape the sounds it produces. The data come from samples from every site we have probed. By exhaling into the device's mouthpiece and using the control slides, the player can produce a variety of sounds across different compositions.
This work was possible by extensive soil sampling and surveying of the affected areas, sending them to university labs, draw data and utilizing the data in programing the Raspberry Pi to alternate the sound samples. Below are some of the field work done to create the sonification system.
Below are some installation shots including the custom made glass mouth pieces for the instrument.
