Åsa Stjerna

“Currents” sound work. Transforming global warming into a sonic experience. Was based on scientific measurement data from the north-Atlantic current in relation to the melting of ice. Its a sonification of real-time data near the Faroe Islands, where the water levels are measured. This data is sent to the installation and changes in real-time due to the constant stream of data. It uses 4 data streams to modulate the sound. Using 8 years of data, they sped it up over 9 million times to create the audible sound in this sound exhibition.  Done to sonify global warming.

“Mare Balticum” sound work. An artistic exploration of the underwater soundscape of the baltic sea. Based on several recordings during a scientific investigation in 2014-2015, collected from 38 hydrophones being recorded at the same time, every hour, each day, for one year. This allowed us to hear the effects of global warming and our effect on the ocean sonically. These recordings have been merged to get a sonic profile of the sea, installed in a one hundred meter long tunnel at Furillen. Each speaker is a specific place in the baltic sea.

I was fascinated by these pieces, as they are extremely creative and are different ways to show global warming that I have never previously thought of. hearing Currents makes me want to record an extremely long field recording and speed it up to create an unusual drone. Mare Balticum’s use of hydrophones was really interesting, in fact, I now want a hydrophone and I love the idea of each speaker being in a different location.

Her creativity to sonify global warming is inspiring and gets across the idea that the world is changing, not just physically but sonically due to pollution and greenhouse gases. I never thought about it but the word will sonically change with global warming, and her way of presenting this is sonically intriguing.