12 Months

  Concept

 

The climate is a flow of changes… Humanity has always tried to understand, predict and even control it because climate is one of the fundamental factors that define a place as well as threatening our safety. As an agent of nature, the climate defines what we wear, it defines what we can eat, it defines what we can see and it defines what we can smell. With "12 Months", the climate now can also talk through music. Inspired from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons", I wanted to bring weather to music, yet with a different twist

 

"12 Months" is the 'audilization' of a city's climate. In this work, the weather data such as the temperature of the air, grass and soil; the wind direction and speed along with the solar radiance are woven together via algorithmic composition to create a musical representation of the climate. As opposed to the traditional culture of visualizing data, "12 Months" offers an auditory experience that introduces a city:Follow the melody to see the change of temperature. Feel the wind through the binaural channels. Figure out the thunderstorms from the sudden changes. Hear the rain through unique sound effects. In "12 Months", each data is represented with a track or a sound effect to employ ears in order to understand a location.

 

The current album, which can be listened from below, is created for our immediate environment: West Lafayette, Indiana where Purdue University is located and it is proposed to AUDO 2012.

 

For ISEA 2013, I would like to extend our audial map to the cities that hosted ISEA including Sydney and create a set of music out of these cities' climate data. I believe that each of these cities from all over the world have a different song to sing to us. By adjusting the algorithm, instrumentation and scales; I would like to uncover those songs. Once they come to a stop, I want to ask the audience the inevitable question: "Where have you been?"

 

 

Album for AUDO2012:

The below album is created for AUDO2012 at Purdue University by using the climate data of West Lafayette, Purdue University area.

Now playing: yagiz's station - 12 Months

Data acquired from Indiana State Climate Office

 

12 Months: Chicago (work in progress):

The below song is the part of the work in progress Chicago album:

Chicago - June 2012

Data acquired from National Climatic Data Center

Data mapping is done as follows:

 

    Melody of the guitar track is determined from air temperature.

    • Durations of notes are determined from station pressure.

    • The starting times of notes are determined from the altimeter.

    • Volume is determined from the speed of the wind.

    • The melody of the pad/saxophone track is determined from the daily average of the wet bulb temperature.

    • The relative humidity determines the drums track.

    • Wind direction is represented with the panning.

    • Precipitation thus rain is represented with the FX track.

    • The bass track reflects the dew point.

    Here is the video for Chicago, January 2012