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Ecomedia How the Natural World is Transforming the Nature of Media. Sunday, October 29, 2006 Biophony, Geophony and Anthrophony Bioacoustics pioneer Bernie Krause spoke at The Ear to the Earth Festival a few weeks ago and presented a classification of the soundscape: Soundscape Density Dr. Krause also spoke about the 'density' of natural soundscapes and how sound density is an important indicator of the health of a natural environment, particularly in the case of the biophony. He said that animal species populate the sound spectrum of an environment in much the same way they populate its geography. When in an environment, animals thrive when they can position themselves in different bands of the sonic spectrum than other animals. When a particular frequency band is open, this provides an opportunity for an animal to come into an environment without sonic competition. Animals have difficulty surviving in areas where their particular frequency band is already occupied. Dr. Krause and other bioacousticians record the soundscape of a natural environment and analyze the sound density. This analysis can give a very good indication of the age and health of the natural community. Randomness My collaborator on N,. Joe Gilmore, spoke at Ear to the Earth about the difficulties of finding pure randomness. Most of the time when computers generate randomness they are not creating true randomness (this is sometimes called 'pseudo-random'). The computer will use the seconds on the system clock for example. Sometimes casinos use atmospheric air pressure readings to determine random numbers, another reason I suppose there is such aggressive climate control on casino floors. The rate at which radiation decays is what is commonly considered a true random number. Joe used a geiger counter as a number generator for one of his sound works exploring true randomness. Gaudi Valley New Zealand based sound artist Phil Dadson presented his work i n the Dry Valleys of Antarctica for Ear to the Earth and spoke about the valleys as the dryest place on Earth populated by microscopic 'extremophiles', a kind of algae that if lost could take over 50 years to re-generate. The strange geography of one part of the area has earned it the nickname 'Gaudi Valley.' Coffins from Ghana Interesting images of coffins from the Ga tribe designed to represent an aspect of a person's life: A Moral Equivalent of War Swiss artist Roman Keller has been working on a project called 'A Moral Equivalent of War' after a phrase used in a speech by former US president Jimmy Carter about a movement towards alternative energies. Keller and his associates are driving a panel from the famous solar panels Carter installed on the White House (located in Maine), across the US to Georgia. Along the way they are interviewing various people who were involved in the project, hoping to end with an interview with Carter himself.
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