KLIMATON is a research and practice-based project that addresses the problem of communicability of scientific facts in the context of climate change. It questions the nature of doubt in the natural sciences and addresses the lack of a cultural approach to the Earth as a holistic entity. The cross-disciplinary project is aimed at translating scientific knowledge into cultural practice, with a focus on sound and performance, in order to generate new modes of gaining knowledge and gathering together.
generative sound object
The sound object KLIMATON ARCTIC≈ 2020 is based on a seminal event in scientific research: At the end of 2020, the research expedition MOSAiC (Alfred Wegener Institute) returned from its Arctic voyage, having spent more than a year collecting data with a kilometre-long network of measuring stations. It is the largest scientific data collection from the region ever and possibly also one of the last large-scale recording of a disappearing landscape that is considered by scientists to be "the key witness of climate change".
Together with a group of MOSAiC scientists, the composer Thies Mynther and a technical team including Pascal Staudt, Chris von Rautenkranz, Martin Edelmann and Jan Münter, we developed a sound instrument that outputs the data from the Arctic as sound - creating a large scale sonified portrait of a disappearing landscape. The instrument is a hybrid between a sonification device and a music instrument - allowing an open approach to the data.
The data of different categories of landscape are played using human voices as the keynote, modulating them and creating a strange choral voice. The earth assimilates the human voice and makes it "speak the language of the earth" - a "geological turn", a reversed network of relationships in which the landscape is playing the human and not the other way round.
The object is structured into six sections, following the key areas of the expedition and each of these sections is further divided in four categories. A total of twenty-four datasets, covering a period of eleven months. From a scientific point of view, the selected datasets are the most relevant ones that most clearly represent climate-related aspects. We have identified these together with the scientists of the MOSAiC expedition.
CONCEPT / ARTISTIC DIRECTION / PRODUCTION: Adnan Softić, Nina Softić
SOUND DESIGN / MUSICAL INTERPRETATION: Thies Mynther
DATA MANAGEMENT: Dr. Sebastian Mieruch - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
TECHNICAL TEAM: Pascal Staudt, Martin Edelmann, Chris von Rautenkranz, Lukas Esser, Jan Münther
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Jons Vukorep
SCIENTIFIC CONSULTING:
Dr. Mario Hoppmann - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Giulia Castellani - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Hauke Flores - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Sandra Tippenhauer - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Ingrid Linck Rosenheim - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Dorothea Bauch – GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, GER
Prof. Dr. Jennifer Hutchings - Oregon State University, Corvallis, US
Prof. Dr. Matthew Shupe - University of Colorado, Boulder, US
Dr. Serdar Sakinan - Wageningen Marine Research Institute, Wageningen, NL
Dr. Jacqueline Stefels - University of Groningen, NL
WITH THANKS TO: Prof. Dr. Marcus Rex, Dr. Hinrich Thölken, Daniela Berglehn, Prof. Dr. Alberto De Campo, Tirdad Zolghadr
We thank all those who contributed to MOSAiC and made this endeavour possible.
SUPPORT:
E.ON Stiftung
Universität der Künste Berlin
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)
University of Colorado Boulder
generative sound object
The sound object KLIMATON ARCTIC≈ 2020 is based on a seminal event in scientific research: At the end of 2020, the research expedition MOSAiC (Alfred Wegener Institute) returned from its Arctic voyage, having spent more than a year collecting data with a kilometre-long network of measuring stations. It is the largest scientific data collection from the region ever and possibly also one of the last large-scale recording of a disappearing landscape that is considered by scientists to be "the key witness of climate change".
Together with a group of MOSAiC scientists, the composer Thies Mynther and a technical team including Juan Duarte, Chris von Rautenkranz, Martin Edelmann and Jan Münter, we developed a sound instrument that outputs the data from the Arctic as sound - creating a large scale sonified portrait of a disappearing landscape. The instrument is a hybrid between a sonification device and a music instrument - allowing an open approach to the data.
The data of different categories of landscape are played using human voices as the keynote, modulating them and creating a strange choral voice. The earth assimilates the human voice and makes it "speak the language of the earth" - a "geological turn", a reversed network of relationships in which the landscape is playing the human and not the other way round.
The object is structured into six sections, following the key areas of the expedition and each of these sections is further divided in four categories. A total of twenty-four datasets, covering a period of eleven months. From a scientific point of view, the selected datasets are the most relevant ones that most clearly represent climate-related aspects. We have identified these together with the scientists of the MOSAiC expedition.
Air temperature
Air pressure
Wind speed
Ozone
Temperature
Height
Snowfall
Albedo
Temperature
Thickness
Cracking
Drift
Temperature
Salinity
Turbulence
Solar radiation
Algae
Organic matter
Plankton
Fishes
CREDITS:
CONCEPT / ARTISTIC DIRECTION / PRODUCTION:
Adnan Softić, Nina Softić
SOUND DESIGN / MUSICAL INTERPRETATION: Thies Mynther
DATA MANAGEMENT:
Dr. Sebastian Mieruch - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
TECHNICAL TEAM: Pascal Staudt, Martin Edelmann, Chris von Rautenkranz, Lukas Esser, Jan Münther
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Jons Vukorep
SCIENTIFIC CONSULTING:
Dr. Mario Hoppmann - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Giulia Castellani - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Hauke Flores - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Sandra Tippenhauer - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Ingrid Linck Rosenheim - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Bremerhaven, GER
Dr. Dorothea Bauch – GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, GER
Prof. Dr. Jennifer Hutchings - Oregon State University, Corvallis, US
Prof. Dr. Matthew Shupe - University of Colorado, Boulder, US
Dr. Serdar Sakinan - Wageningen Marine Research Institute, Wageningen, NL
Dr. Jacqueline Stefels - University of Groningen, NL
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Prof. Dr. Marcus Rex, Prof. Dr. Alberto De Campo, Dr. Hinrich Thölken, Daniela Berglehn, Tirdad Zolghadr
We thank all those who contributed to MOSAiC and made this endeavour possible.
SUPPORT:
E.ON Stiftung
Universität der Künste Berlin
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)
University of Colorado, Boulder