Speculātor: visual soundscape augmentation of natural environments

Nathan Villicaña-Shaw, Dale A. Carnegie, Jim Murphy, and Mo Zareei

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

Speculātor is presented as a fist-sized, battery-powered, environmentally aware, soundscape augmentation artifact that listens to the sonic environment and provides real-time illuminated visual feedback in reaction to what it hears. The visual soundscape augmentations these units offer allow for creating sonic art installations whose artistic subject is the unaltered in-situ sonic environment. Speculātor is designed to be quickly installed in exposed outdoor environments without power infrastructure to allow maximum flexibility when selecting exhibition locations. Data from light, temperature, and humidity sensors guide behavior to maximize soundscape augmentation effectiveness and protect artifacts from operating under dangerous environmental conditions. To highlight the music-like qualities of cicada vocalizations, installations conducted between October 2019 and March 2020, where multiple Speculātor units are installed in outdoor natural locations are presented as an initial case study.

Citation:

Nathan Villicaña-Shaw, Dale A. Carnegie, Jim Murphy, and Mo Zareei. 2021. Speculātor: visual soundscape augmentation of natural environments. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.21428/92fbeb44.e521c5a4

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{NIME21_43,
 abstract = {Speculātor is presented as a fist-sized, battery-powered, environmentally aware, soundscape augmentation artifact that listens to the sonic environment and provides real-time illuminated visual feedback in reaction to what it hears. The visual soundscape augmentations these units offer allow for creating sonic art installations whose artistic subject is the unaltered in-situ sonic environment. Speculātor is designed to be quickly installed in exposed outdoor environments without power infrastructure to allow maximum flexibility when selecting exhibition locations. Data from light, temperature, and humidity sensors guide behavior to maximize soundscape augmentation effectiveness and protect artifacts from operating under dangerous environmental conditions. To highlight the music-like qualities of cicada vocalizations, installations conducted between October 2019 and March 2020, where multiple Speculātor units are installed in outdoor natural locations are presented as an initial case study.},
 address = {Shanghai, China},
 articleno = {43},
 author = {Villicaña-Shaw, Nathan and Carnegie, Dale A. and Murphy, Jim and Zareei, Mo},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.21428/92fbeb44.e521c5a4},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/kP3fDzAHXDw},
 title = {Speculātor: visual soundscape augmentation of natural environments},
 url = {https://nime.pubpub.org/pub/pxr0grnk},
 year = {2021}
}