One year ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted, causing widespread destruction to the Pacific Island Nation of Tonga. It spewed volcanic material up to 58 km into the atmosphere, brought a nearly 15 m tsunami that crashed ashore, destroying villages, and created a sonic boom that rippled around the world – twice. 

Even one year on, interest in the extraordinary explosive eruption remains. A sound artist has recently recreated the sonification of the underwater volcanic eruption using rayleigh signal intensity data provided by the Aeolus Virtual Research Environment platform.

Using wind data obtained on one of its overpasses over the ash cloud of the Hunga Tonga explosion, Jamie Perera used an audio sample of one of the shock waves, time-stretched it into a ghostly tone, and assigned it to harmonic values transcribed from 90 Aeolus readings taken over a duration of approximately 15 minutes. 
The listener hears one reading every two seconds, in a harmonic range that spans six piano octaves, the highest of which can be heard at around 01:18 minutes when the readings show the eruption’s dust plume at its highest peak (over 20.5 km). The artistic intention behind the sonification was to evoke the otherworldly landscape of Hunga Tonga and other volcanoes. 

Sonification credit/copyright: @jamieperera (2023). Used by permission. Data and guidance provided by Daniel Santillan. Thanks to Peter Bickerton and Jemma Foster. Originally created as part of Wild Alchemy Journal - Air Edition - Aeolus

Sound of the Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption

ESA’s Earth Explorer Aeolus satellite was launched in August 2018 on a trailblazing mission to show how profiling Earth’s winds from space can improve weather forecasts and climate models. Marking the end of Aeolus’ remarkable mission, ESA worked with composer Jamie Perera to create a woodwind piece from data that spanned the lifetime of the satellite’s life in orbit around Earth.

In the resulting orchestral piece, every second is a day in the life of Aeolus, with data represented by the following instruments: 
Piccolo: Rayleigh Top Altitude (the tops of clouds)  
Flute: Rayleigh Observation Type (density of clouds)
Oboe: Rayleigh Reference Temperature (wind temperature)
Clarinet 1: Rayleigh Wind Velocity (wind velocity)
Clarinet 2: Rayleigh Wind Reference Pressure (air pressure)  
Bassoon/Bass Clarinet: Rayleigh Bottom Altitude (Earth’s surface)
Ambient Synth: Validity Flag 0 (Aeolus downtime)
You can also hear landmark events such as volcanic eruptions represented by drums, hurricanes represented by wind sound effects, and the Coronavirus pandemic represented by a pulsing synth. 

Read the full story:
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/Aeolus/The_sound_of_Aeolus_will_blow_you_away

Download the full performance guide:
https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/Life-of-Aeolus-Performance-Guide.pdf

Credits: @jamieperera (2023). Used by permission. Data and guidance provided by Daniel Santillan; sonification programming by Adrian Lewis

The sound of the wind from space

from an EP i'm dropping fairly soon. wrote this as kind of a sequel to "late at night".

hope y'all enjoy it ♥

also, check out my patreon if you haven't already! early access to new tunes & lots of other neat stuff! http://www.patreon.com/McMaNGOS

undecided

Free Download

05. sunrise

The last few months have been amazing in terms of remix assignments and gigs. Dan Reynolds really has an amazing voice and I have done my best to create a good tune around the solid vocals. Hope you will enjoy the remix as much as I did making it! If you like the track leave a <3 and share it! :) Lots of love!

Like it? Give it a <3 on Hypem: 
http://hypem.com/track/26j9j/Imagine+Dragons+-+It's+Time+(Matoma+Tropical+Remix)

Photocredit:
Kamilla Paulsen
milligramdesign.no/

Imagine Dragons - It's Time (Matoma Tropical Remix)

*Some strong language*

This is a short horror story called Rain that was written by Yen Ooi, read by Jessica Whittaker and produced by Jamie Perera. 

If you enjoyed this story, do visit the author's website www.yenooi.com for more, or leave a comment. We hope to have more short stories for your listening pleasure in future. 

Thanks!

Rain - short audio story

Euclid's Algorithm Sonification With Explanation Marcus Du Sautoy And Jamie Perera

England's Covid 19 Deaths By Day - Sonification by Jamie Perera. 1 of 3.
Listen while viewing the following visual: https://bit.ly/Covid19_Chart

Sonification helps us both factually and emotionally understand events by listening to associated data. For England's journey with Covid 19 I'm sonifying the following data for deaths in England from March 1st 2020:

> Kick drum - Day Markers (from 0.00)
> Reverse cymbal - National Lockdown Mar23rd (1.24)
> Cello - Daily Hospital Deaths (from 1.44)(red dots on chart)  
> Synth Pulse - Hospital Deaths 5 day Rolling Average(from 0:08)(blue line on chart)
> Strings - All Settings Deaths 5 day Rolling Average (deaths in all places)(from 0:20)(green line on chart) 
> High Violins - Excess deaths (the total amount of deaths above the 5 year average)(from 0:52)(grey blocks on chart)  

Data for this sonification was collated by Thom Alex Day from the following sources:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
Sonification programming by Adrian Lewis.

Artist’s Statement on Sonification #1:
Sonifying deaths from Covid 19 is not a decision I’ve taken lightly. It’s a process of emotional learning, of exploring issues whilst expressing the data responsibly; my feelings are secondary to the form being a catalyst for others to reflect on their experiences. 

Sonification sits somewhere between information and emotion, whilst dealing with issues like data integrity, accuracy of representation, meaning, story and agenda. So nothing is perfect, the imperfection is embodied and is subject to what arises in the process of making. 

For my part, it’s impossible to not have thoughts of ‘how’, ‘why’, and ‘who’, as more facts are researched and as more data is pored over. But right now, the overriding feeling is to respectfully represent those who have lost their lives. I am interested in honest responses and I hope this work engages us to reflect on what has happened and is still happening around us.  

Jamie P

More info at https://www.jamieperera.com/about

Sonification - England Covid 19 Deaths by Day from March 1st - Updated June 12th 2020

If The Oceans Could Speak | Installation | We Are The Oceans | EDIT Toronto Design Exchange 2017

If the Oceans Could Speak transforms data around our production, consumption and disposal of plastics in the world's oceans into a sound and music composition. It is part of the Climate Symphony series, commissioned by We Are the Oceans and exhibited as part of EDIT at Toronto's Design Exchange in September-October 2017. This piece was created using peer-reviewed datasets from the World Economic Forum, Plastics Europe, the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Georgia and Sea Education Association in Massachusetts, brought together by the MacArthur Foundation Report "The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics". Using underwater oceanic recordings together with data sonification, we create an immersive sound experience to provoke new associations around the data. The audience is encouraged to share their reactions to the piece, and an accompanying visual presentation draws out the narratives and sonic representations in greater detail. As an artwork, it presents consumption and disposal of plastic using sonic textures, harmonies and variations in pitch and intensity to allow a visceral response in the listener. As a piece of journalism, it remains true to the raw data, and uncomfortable and jarring sounds echo the relentless increase in world plastic waste.