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Unfixing Horizons

Keywords: multi-sensory, interconnectedness, perception shift, transduction, sunset

One day I looked out of my window, as the sun was setting on the roofs of the sleepy houses in my street. There was only the sound of birds and dogs barking at the horizon. I suddenly found myself asking: "How does a sunset sound?"

12th of may 2024: the sunsetting seen from het Noorderstrand near Scheveningen)

"How does a sunset sound?" is an exploratory and imaginative research question that bridges the realms of visual and auditory experiences. It challenges traditional perceptions by inviting us to consider how a purely visual phenomenon can be translated into sound, encouraging a deeper, multi-sensory understanding of natural events. This question informed my response to a shared concern as voiced by De Ambassade van de Noordzee and Stichting Doggerland:
 

"How can we give presence and voice to an environment (being the North Sea

or more specific the Doggersbank) in policy making decision processes?"  

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In this project I explore how the most photographed natural event in the world can exist across multiple sensory and material modes.​​​ Instead of just showing a visual image, I convert the sunset into data, from data into sounds, and from sound into physical and tangible objects. Shaking up our habitual way of perceiving the natural world through vision, the sunset translations mix aspects of nature, digital processes, aesthetic choices, into something new. Challenging the idea that there are fixed separations between categories like nature/technology, human/non-human, visual/sonic experience, my research suggests these realms are constantly shaping and in-fluencing each other through ongoing interactions.
 


 

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The recorded sunset moves between different expressions and modes of data that are being generated by the intra-actions between the place, technological devices and human intention; from film, soundscapes, sound graphs, sonic photographs, and into a 2x2m sculptural object made of transparent spectrograms, suspended in space.  
Experiencing the works, we enter a state of uncertainty. This productive "lostness" opens up to letting go of assumptions that phenomena can be contained as stable objects of "what a sunset really is." They become their own hybridized phenomena existing across multiple sensory and material modes, fostering a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between human, technological, and more-than-human entities. 

installation view from the group exhibition 00:05:59, Paradise (The Hague), june 2024

From Sunset to Soundscape

April 12th 2024: testing codes in my studio

designing the code:
To make the sunset into a live aural experience, Iive visual input is transformed into live aural output. The development process involved iterative coding and testing to transform visual data from the North Sea environment into audio experiences. I used Processing (a flexible software sketchbook and coding language within the context of visual arts) along with the Minim library to analyze live video feeds, focusing on the dynamic changes in color at sunset. The code maps color properties—hue, saturation, and brightness—of each video frame to sound frequencies, creating a real-time audio representation of the visual scene. 


"As the sun sets, colors shift from bright yellows and oranges to deeper reds and eventually purples and blues. These colors are captured in the video frame and divided into a grid. The dominant colors in each grid cell are calculated. The hue of these colors influences the frequency of the oscillators. For example, yellow (hue ~ 60) might produce higher frequencies, while red (hue ~ 0) and blue (hue ~ 240)

produce lower frequencies. The brightness and saturation of the colors influence the amplitude. Brighter and more saturated colors produce louder sounds. Lines are drawn on the video to visualize the frequency and amplitude mappings.These lines change dynamically as the colors in the video change, creating a visual representation of the sound. In the context of New Materialism this process is called transduction: the process of converting or transforming energy, matter, or information from one form to another. This concept is particularly important in understanding how different elements and forces interact and influence each other in material systems."  (Notes 12.4.24)

doubts, fears and decisions: challenging my anthropocentric position

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Unfixing Horizons (photo by Yuta Mori)

9th of may 2024: walking the dunes near Zandvoort aan Zee (photo by Yuta Mori)

To test the design I went on several field trips in the North Sea environments. During these field trips I learned how my tools and codes would react to the varied (and unpredictable) environments of the North Sea coast. My tool being my laptop that would capture these environments through its camera, while the code played on my laptop would transform the visual input into aural output in real time.

During the field trips I slowly realised that my experience of the world around me was changing.

"Shadows chasing over the dunes, the swaying of the marram grasses and the nodding of the blue sea hollies, a coughing airplane flying over our heads. The spectrum of greys, browns and yellows that is the swaging Dutch coast, and the slow accumulation of clouds on the ho-rizon, as the sea approaches and retreats in a continuous cycle far beyond human concep-tion: all become data, data become frequencies, and all together becomes a cacophony of noise coming from this fragile little body that is my MacBook. Nonhuman noise. There is a timbre of  disappointment in me. A feeling of failure perhaps. This is not what I am looking for. No otherworldly choirs, no angelic revelations, nothing but incomprehensible static and  murmuring. I wonder if I am doing something wrong. I check the code. I try different  settings. All is futile. I notice a whiff of panic, of not knowing, a loss of control. I understand that choices are inevitable. To what extend do I want control over the output, over the outcome, over the transduction process? Feeling split to the bone.

 As I begin to let go, I notice the similarities with grieve." (Notes, 8.5.24)

armouring my laptop from the elements

The real-world-setting-tests posed questions that were about power, control, representation, and letting go of these things. I understood that my fears and doubts came from my anthropocentric position, which was the position I intuitively wanted to challenge from the beginning. Realising that I ventured into a collaborative practice between the human, technological and natural spheres, I decided (and I'm quoting here Trinh T. Minh-ha in an interview with Nancy Chen) "to speak nearby, rather than to speak about"  the nonhuman world. To speak in proximity asked of me not to assume a position of authority (human / the single maker), it required me to leave the space of representation open, to leave a gap where the Other (the nonhuman spheres) comes in and fills that space. And, as Minh-ha rightfully predicted, by refraining from adopting a position of authority, I was liberated from the endless standards and hierarchies that come with claiming to have complete knowledge. Together with the environment and technological devices I was creating a nonhuman story (New Materialism & The Nonhuman Story, Seril Oppermann 2021).

the sunset as a site of narrativity​

"From the boulevard and the beach clubs and the little restaurants people are walking to the surf of the sea, as the sun bulges into an almost obscene pink-orange peach. It seems like an animalistic rite from the pre-times. Some face the sea in silence, alone or in the company of a significant other, holding the spaces between each other. Others, mostly small groups of youngsters, face away from the sea and record themselves with their phones: positioning, posing, gesturing, smiling, checking. And repeat.

I feel a mix of annoyance and intrigue while observing the collective rituals. 

How many photos and videos have been made of the sunset today?

How many will be made tomorrow?

What is their collective meaning? What stories do we tell to our-selves about ourselves through all of these sunsets? These banal sets of interactions of light and atmosphere, of the sky and the ocean, of the ocean and the land?" (Notes, 9.5.2024)

".. a site of narrativity, a site where where narrative agencies assemble and disseminate meaningful articulations, variously demonstrating their being in the world as well as the insight that each material agency- biological or not- possesses in some degree of creative experience. Narrative agencies are the building blocks of storied matter; they signify a nonlinguistic performance inherent in every material formation, from subatomic particles to biological organisms to geophysical forces." (New Materialism & The Nonhuman Story, Seril Oppermann 2021).

I became to see the sunset as 'a site of narrativity', and what I first experienced to be 'noise' coming out of my laptop as a non-linguistic performance between the site, technology and myself.

The sun itself, moving in relation to Earth.
The atmosphere, with its gasses and particles that scatter light.
Clouds, reflecting and colouring the light.
The landscape, which shapes how we see the horizon.
Living things like birds, humans or the stinging insects that are part of the site.
The code, converting visual information (colours, hues, brightnesses) into auditory.
Transducing the digital data from one sensory mode to another.
The poor toiling little MacBook, interpreting the visual input and the sonic output,
creating a dynamic, real-time interaction between the environment and the technology. 
The observer, whose presence and perception is part of the experience.
And my intention that aims the devices, that wrote the code, that records and writes. Is writing. Longing.

For new ways of experiencing, understanding. For stepping out of my humanity, even for the slightest.
For perceptual change and new relations. 

(Notes, 10.5.2024)

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The sunset becomes a site of narrativity, where geophysical forces shape the light that interacts with my MacBook’s lens. In that instant, my MacBook acts as a translator, converting the light of the sunset into pixel values. The code within the MacBook then takes over, transforming these pixels into sonic data. This data is released as sound waves through the speakers, projecting the sunset’s story back into the environment as sound. These sound waves, now part of the site’s narrative, blend with the surroundings and alter the space. As the MacBook records this sonic story, it becomes an archive and a mnemonic device, preserving the sonic narrative of the site. I, as an observer, add my own layer to the story by translating what I experience into words and memories.
This "sunset narrative" emerges from the interactions, translations, and entanglements between these various human and nonhuman agencies. It's not a singular, fixed story, but an evolving, hybrid phenomenon that is to be explored through the different mediums and modes of transduction. A narrative happening within seconds, if not milli-seconds.

By capturing the blend of generated sound (based on the visual data) and the environmental sounds, I archived this narrative in an auditory form. This narrative is then carried with me, ready to be transformed into new modes, to be shared in new places, creating new connections.

the act of transduction

Only after reviewing all the recordings I became aware how important of a role the act of transduction was playing in my research. In my project, transduction -being the transformation of energy, matter or information from one form to another- highlights the ways technological and natural agencies collaborate to create new hybrid materialities. I decided to continue to explore how different elements can be translated and transformed across sensory modes through an iterative process of transducing. By translating the recorded soundscape into spectrograms I am  taking the temporal, ephemeral quality of the soundscape and render it as a visual, spatial representation. The spectrogram becomes a kind of "sonic image" that preserves the narrative in a new sensory modality.

This visual translation serves a few important purposes:

  1. The possibility arises of  creating a physical, material artifact that can be engaged with and studied in its own right. The spectrogram is no longer just a fleeting auditory experience, but a tangible object that embodies the sonic narrative.

  2. The visual form of the spectrogram may reveal patterns, textures, and relationships within the soundscape that are not as readily apparent in the audio alone. This visual analysis can potentially uncover new layers of the narrative.

  3. Presenting the sunset's story through this hybrid visual-sonic medium further challenges the primacy of vision (and visual re-presentation) and opens up new ways for the audience to perceive and interpret the phenomenon.

  4. The spectrogram acts as another node in the network of transductions - visual to sonic, sonic to visual - that are central to this project. It continues to blur the boundaries between senses and modes of representation.

So in essence, the spectrogram becomes another way to both archive and expand the narrative captured, offering a new entry point  to engage with the sunset's multifaceted "story." 

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the sonic image of a sunet

The sunset's colors, brightness, and hues are transformed into sound. The sound bleeds into the environment and is being recorded with the ambient sound. The recordings are then again translated into a spectrogram: "a photo of sound", representing the spectrum of frequencies over time. This resulted into a spectrogram with a duration of approximately 1.5 hours.

1,5 hour spectrogram of the sunset, best experienced with headset  

The spectrograms are presented with a timeline of a sunset at the 12th of may 2024. The blues form the areas in which no freq

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