Sensing the Alice Holt Forest

Anna Xambó

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This data-driven live coding performance explores natural soundscape recordings from the Alice Holt Forest, UK, captured continuously over the course of a year via a custom built audio streamer. The central enquiry is whether patterns in forest soundscapes can be linked to climate change, using acoustic ecology and live coding to highlight their interconnection. Are species' sounds diminishing? Do environmental noises dominate? Are there other acoustic markers tied to climate shifts? The performance uses MIRLCa, a self-developed SuperCollider extension that combines AI and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques to retrieve and manipulate sounds from Freesound in real time.

Citation

Anna Xambó. 2026. Sensing the Alice Holt Forest. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20782168 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_music_46,
 abstract = {This data-driven live coding performance explores natural soundscape recordings from the Alice Holt Forest, UK, captured continuously over the course of a year via a custom built audio streamer. The central enquiry is whether patterns in forest soundscapes can be linked to climate change, using acoustic ecology and live coding to highlight their interconnection. Are species' sounds diminishing? Do environmental noises dominate? Are there other acoustic markers tied to climate shifts? The performance uses MIRLCa, a self-developed SuperCollider extension that combines AI and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques to retrieve and manipulate sounds from Freesound in real time.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {46},
 author = {Anna Xambó},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20782168},
 editor = {Lia Mice and Nicole Robson and Tara Pattenden},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {Live Performance},
 numpages = {2},
 pages = {195--196},
 presentation-video = {https://iclc.toplap.org/2025/catalogue/performance/sensing-the-alice-holt-forest.html},
 title = {Sensing the Alice Holt Forest},
 track = {Music},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_music_46.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}