Installation and software art
FarmSonics: Driving Agricultural Sustainability: Empowering Smallholder Farmers with Digital Transformation
FarmSonics (Quintas Sonoras) is an interactive sound installation that converts data from farms in Portugal into sound. This process is called sonification: turning data into sound. Sensors on three farms send real-time data from eight parameters: air pressure, air humidity, temperature, rainfall, windspeed, wind direction, soil temperature, and soil humidity.
With this data, I control sound parameters like pitch, rhythm, timbre, etc. You can find the detailed description of these “mappings” below.
Three mixing consoles (one for each farm) allow you to create a unique soundscape, and you can also listen to the differences between each farm. Since the data is always changing, each soundscape will be unique. The mixing consoles are made from recycled wine crates.
You can see several images and videos on my blog-page.
About the Farms
There are three monitoring stations, all located near Vila Nova de Famalicão:
The Mappings
Mappings are a way to "translate" a data point from numbers to sound.
Air Pressure
Air pressure is represented by a continuous sound (what we call a drone). If the air pressure is high, the pitch lowers, and vice versa. Additionally, the sound is filtered with a low-cut filter, depending on the rainfall. This means the sound becomes duller when there's more rain and clearer when there is less. Windspeed controls the resonance: the more wind, the more movement there is in the sound.
Temperature
The simplest mapping: temperature determines the pitch of a piano. Additionally, the windspeed detunes the tone: the more wind there is, the more detuned the piano sounds. This refers to the “feels-like” temperature: when there's a lot of wind, we experience temperature differently.
Rainfall
Rainfall creates a soundscape of raindrops: the more rain, the more raindrops. These raindrops are synthetically generated by the software.
Soil Temperature
Similar to air temperature: the pitch of a bell depends on the soil temperature. Since soil temperature is usually more stable than air temperature, there is no detuning here.
Wind Direction
The sound of an otherworldly flute. There are 16 wind directions assigned to 8 notes.
Windspeed
Here, a dreamcatcher plays: the more wind, the faster and louder the bells jingle. Air pressure controls the cutoff frequency of a high-cut filter: the higher the air pressure, the duller the sound. Wind direction determines the key of the dreamcatcher. The decay (how long the sound lingers) is controlled by the air humidity: the drier the air, the shorter the sounds.
Air Humidity
A sound file of a stream plays in a loop. The higher the air humidity, the faster the sound plays. The more rainfall, the higher the pitch.
Soil Humidity
The same principle as air humidity, but here the sound file is of someone walking in mud.
DISCLAIMER: Work produced by Samuel Van Ransbeeck, under the Residency “FarmSonics”, which was co-commissioned by INOVA+, with the support of UL-VNF and the S+T+ARTS In the City, a project co-funded by the STARTS program of the European Union. This work reflects only the author’s views, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for them
With this data, I control sound parameters like pitch, rhythm, timbre, etc. You can find the detailed description of these “mappings” below.
Three mixing consoles (one for each farm) allow you to create a unique soundscape, and you can also listen to the differences between each farm. Since the data is always changing, each soundscape will be unique. The mixing consoles are made from recycled wine crates.
You can see several images and videos on my blog-page.
About the Farms
There are three monitoring stations, all located near Vila Nova de Famalicão:
- At Lusíada University. This is the control station where we can always quickly calibrate and experiment.
- In the community gardens, where amateur farmers practice small-scale agriculture.
- Quinta Rural: a commercial farm.
The Mappings
Mappings are a way to "translate" a data point from numbers to sound.
Air Pressure
Air pressure is represented by a continuous sound (what we call a drone). If the air pressure is high, the pitch lowers, and vice versa. Additionally, the sound is filtered with a low-cut filter, depending on the rainfall. This means the sound becomes duller when there's more rain and clearer when there is less. Windspeed controls the resonance: the more wind, the more movement there is in the sound.
Temperature
The simplest mapping: temperature determines the pitch of a piano. Additionally, the windspeed detunes the tone: the more wind there is, the more detuned the piano sounds. This refers to the “feels-like” temperature: when there's a lot of wind, we experience temperature differently.
Rainfall
Rainfall creates a soundscape of raindrops: the more rain, the more raindrops. These raindrops are synthetically generated by the software.
Soil Temperature
Similar to air temperature: the pitch of a bell depends on the soil temperature. Since soil temperature is usually more stable than air temperature, there is no detuning here.
Wind Direction
The sound of an otherworldly flute. There are 16 wind directions assigned to 8 notes.
Windspeed
Here, a dreamcatcher plays: the more wind, the faster and louder the bells jingle. Air pressure controls the cutoff frequency of a high-cut filter: the higher the air pressure, the duller the sound. Wind direction determines the key of the dreamcatcher. The decay (how long the sound lingers) is controlled by the air humidity: the drier the air, the shorter the sounds.
Air Humidity
A sound file of a stream plays in a loop. The higher the air humidity, the faster the sound plays. The more rainfall, the higher the pitch.
Soil Humidity
The same principle as air humidity, but here the sound file is of someone walking in mud.
DISCLAIMER: Work produced by Samuel Van Ransbeeck, under the Residency “FarmSonics”, which was co-commissioned by INOVA+, with the support of UL-VNF and the S+T+ARTS In the City, a project co-funded by the STARTS program of the European Union. This work reflects only the author’s views, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for them
The Outhouse Storycatcher
The Outhouse Storycatcher is an interactive video booth to collect people’s stories in a playful way. People see a quirky box in the street and are attracted by its looks. This work has seen many iterations. It first started in 2009 when Brian Cohen did a residency in the remote town of Ivanhoe, in NSW, Australia. Since then, it has seen several iterations. In 2009, it won first prize at the Future Places media arts festival in Porto, Portugal.
In 2010, it was used on a research project (CAMRA- Cultural Asset Mapping in Regional Australia) by the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, to collect stories in remote towns. It proved to be more popular than a traditional questionnaire. As people felt more free to speak without a person sit-in across them. Furthermore, it was useful to attract people with limited reading skills, making it accessible.
Until 2015, it has undergone several modification and every iteration had a new design. The software was written in Max and the installation ran on a MacMini embedded in the booth. The video below shows the 2010 version at a festival in Tasmania.
In 2010, it was used on a research project (CAMRA- Cultural Asset Mapping in Regional Australia) by the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, to collect stories in remote towns. It proved to be more popular than a traditional questionnaire. As people felt more free to speak without a person sit-in across them. Furthermore, it was useful to attract people with limited reading skills, making it accessible.
Until 2015, it has undergone several modification and every iteration had a new design. The software was written in Max and the installation ran on a MacMini embedded in the booth. The video below shows the 2010 version at a festival in Tasmania.
Playtime #1
Playtime #1 is a patch in Max/MSP, that uses a game (Pong) also made in Max/MSP. The gaming field is divided in 16 squares, each holding a soundfile. Everytime the ball enters a square, the soundfile is played. Because the ball moves not always in the same direction, a nonlinear music is created. Also, everytime a point is scored by one of the players, a new set of soundfiles is loaded, so that there is musical variety.
As it is written a while ago, current MacOS probably will not support it anymore. But feel free to download it and experiment with it. I made the sound events all audio files rather than mididfiles, hence the relatively large file size.
As it is written a while ago, current MacOS probably will not support it anymore. But feel free to download it and experiment with it. I made the sound events all audio files rather than mididfiles, hence the relatively large file size.