Sonification of Ecological Environment through Electronic Musical Instruments
Ka Hei Cheng · 2022
The aim of the traditional meaning of Acoustic Ecology is to "bring together the scientific, sociological and aesthetic aspects of the sonic environment" 1 , and inspire the attention to not only the natural sounds, but also the industrialized environment and human-effect sounding world.With the technological advancement in feature extraction, data retrieval, metadata elaboration, and ubiquitous computing 2 , the methodology of Acoustic Ecology could be extended to biodata detection, analysis, manipulation, and sonification.Therefore, it is proposed that Acoustic Ecology should be revitalized and re-defined according to contemporary knowledge in music technology after re-thinking the history of technology-based music.I propose that Acoustic Ecology shall not only include the acoustic properties of the soundscape, but also including biodata sonification.Through measuring electrical conductivity, galvanic conductance, electromagnetic signals, or expressing biological structure of organisms in tailor-made electronic musical instruments, the signals convey the energy through algorithmic computation into sounds, which is different from the conversion between analog to digital signals in the field recordings of acoustic landscape.Biodata How do we revitalize acoustic ecology in our contemporary music scene?How do we adapt electronic musical instruments to acoustic ecology?How do we advocate the theoretical, empirical, and practical principles related to human body perception on ecology, instrumental performance, and presentation?How does machine learning facility electronic musical instruments in the practices of creating artworks for acoustic ecology?