BIRD SONG DIAMOND: The Acoustic Mapping of Bird Song Networks

July 28, 2014
UCLA Sculpture Garden

An acoustic construction: hyper sound speakers amplify and present sounds from nature.

UCLA Professors Charles Taylor, Evolutionary Biology and Victoria Vesna, Design | Media Arts present the work of Professor Takashi Ikegami and his students Atsushi Masumori, Itzuki Doi, and Norihiro Maruyama. This is one aspect of a multi-year transdisciplinary collaborative project “Mapping the Acoustic Communication Networks of Birds” funded by NSF and will be presented at the upcoming Artificial Life conference in New York.

In this installation the participant/viewer experience sound that can be directed to give a 3D experience and “view” the soundscape from different angles and reflections — similar to the reflections/refraction of light seen through diamonds. Highly directional hyper sound speakers and motion sensors create immersive, targeted soundscape patterns in some ways richer than those which occur naturally. By moving around the viewer can view and review their sound environment with a heightened awareness. We anticipate that Birdsong Diamond will leave viewers with new questions about their soundscape environment.

More about the research project: http://artsci.ucla.edu/birds

Presented by UCLA Birdsong Project and University of Tokyo