SOS - A Seismic Radio Station Broadcasting the Music of Earthquakes

	*SOS - A Seismic Radio Station Broadcasting the Music of Earthquakes* Overview Develop application programming interface creating Sounds of Seismic (SOS) internet radio station. The SOS streaming audio service amplifies and sonificates the disturbance of micro-seismic ruptures from Magnitude 0.1 and above which occur frequently below the surface of the earth. SOS digitally processes near real-time recorded seismic wave form data into audible sound files then broadcasts these sonificated seismic sound waves 'live' across the internet. Theory SOS is an early 21st century, digital expansion of the avant-garde music and sound art form of Musique Concrete . In the 1940's Pierre Schaeffer conceived the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual framework for thinking about musical forms created from non-musical, or 'found' sounds. SOS processes seismic wave-form data collected by digital seismographs as grand Musique Concrete instruments performing a continuous and automated composition streamed across the internet 24/7 - 365 days per year, producing a 'live' soundscape of the dynamic inner earth. Earthquakes are essentially sound waves travelling from the locations of tectonic rupture and displacement. The naturally occurring geophysical properties of earthquakes effectively cause the earth to ring like a bell as seismic waves propagate and travel through the earth. While the actual frequencies of seismic waves are below the range of human hearing, it is possible to speed up digitally recorded seismograms by factors of 5 to 50 and sonificate the sound of these un-listenable events creating sounds audible to the human ear. Seismic waves have a frequency spectrum below 1 Hz. The human audio spectrum ranges between 20 Hz - 20 kHz which is much above the spectrum of the earth's rumbling and rupture. Using computational processing, the time axis of a seismogram can be sped up enabling the seismometric record of actual seismic events to be sonificated producing audible sound waves which fit within the ranges of the human ears acoustic criteria of listening to sound. Sonification is defined as the use of nonspeech audio to convey information. Specifically, sonification is the transformation of data into perceived relations of acoustic signals for the purposes of facilitating communication and/or interpretation. The SOS project incorporates interdisciplinary collaboration between media-artists, software developers and geophysicists from Australia, Netherlands and the USA. Science and art are fundamentally alike as they both use modes of enquiry seeking to discover the 'other', while at the same time artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives. This art-science collaboration between media artists and scientists will be a public audio extension of Inner Earth Interpreter (IEI) being developed for Allosphere at UC Santa Barbara during the US spring of 2012. Technical Overview The Sounds of Seismic system (SOS) system utilizes Seismogram Transfer Program (STP) developed by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) or Buffer of Uniform Data (BUD) developed by Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). Both these realtime seismic data collection archives are in partnership with the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) infrastructure for seismic monitoring of the United States and effectively the rest of the world. Python scripted SOS software collects real-time digital seismic waveform data and digitally processes this inaudible wave form data into acoustic audible sound waves. This real-time monitored seismographic data is processed by time stretching by factors of 5 to 50 creating mp3, ACC or ogg-vorbis audio-files. These file formats used for streaming internet audio are further processed with dynamic-range compression and equalisation patches to represent the dynamic range of 'moment magnitude' scale determined by computational logarithmic calculation. The final step in the seismic audio compression state creates a two channel internet audio stream which is broadcast across the internet as a live seismic radio. Listeners of SOS will experience a two channel seismic stream of real-time sonficated seismic audio. Channel one is the audio sonification of continuous real-time seismic data and channel two replays events with computer synthesized announcements indicating and describing the event the user is listening too. A listener of SOS can tune in via a web browser or portable smartphone device. Seismic Sound References Auditory Seismology - Florian Dombois Earthquake Quartet #1 - Andy Michael Earthquake Music - Zhigang Peng Mori - Ken Goldberg Tectonic - Micah Frank ______________________ ©© D.V. Rogers 02009-02011 e: dvr@allshookup.org

SOS - A Seismic Radio Station Broadcasting the Music of Earthquakes

Overview

Develop application programming interface creating Sounds of Seismic (SOS) internet radio station. The SOS streaming audio service amplifies and sonificates the disturbance of micro-seismic ruptures from Magnitude 0.1 and above which occur frequently below the surface of the earth. SOS digitally processes near real-time recorded seismic wave form data into audible sound files then broadcasts these sonificated seismic sound waves 'live' across the internet.

Theory

SOS is an early 21st century, digital expansion of the avant-garde music and sound art form of Musique Concrete . In the 1940's Pierre Schaeffer conceived the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual framework for thinking about musical forms created from non-musical, or 'found' sounds. SOS processes seismic wave-form data collected by digital seismographs as grand Musique Concrete instruments performing a continuous and automated composition streamed across the internet 24/7 - 365 days per year, producing a 'live' soundscape of the dynamic inner earth.

Earthquakes are essentially sound waves travelling from the locations of tectonic rupture and displacement. The naturally occurring geophysical properties of earthquakes effectively cause the earth to ring like a bell as seismic waves propagate and travel through the earth. While the actual frequencies of seismic waves are below the range of human hearing, it is possible to speed up digitally recorded seismograms by factors of 5 to 50 and sonificate the sound of these un-listenable events creating sounds audible to the human ear.

Seismic waves have a frequency spectrum below 1 Hz. The human audio spectrum ranges between 20 Hz - 20 kHz which is much above the spectrum of the earth's rumbling and rupture. Using computational processing, the time axis of a seismogram can be sped up enabling the seismometric record of actual seismic events to be sonificated producing audible sound waves which fit within the ranges of the human ears acoustic criteria of listening to sound.

Sonification is defined as the use of nonspeech audio to convey information. Specifically, sonification is the transformation of data into perceived relations of acoustic signals for the purposes of facilitating communication and/or interpretation. The SOS project incorporates interdisciplinary collaboration between media-artists, software developers and geophysicists from Australia, Netherlands and the USA.

Science and art are fundamentally alike as they both use modes of enquiry seeking to discover the 'other', while at the same time artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives. This art-science collaboration between media artists and scientists will be a public audio extension of Inner Earth Interpreter (IEI) being developed for Allosphere at UC Santa Barbara during the US spring of 2012.

Technical Overview

The Sounds of Seismic system (SOS) system utilizes Seismogram Transfer Program (STP) developed by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) or Buffer of Uniform Data (BUD) developed by Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). Both these realtime seismic data collection archives are in partnership with the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) infrastructure for seismic monitoring of the United States and effectively the rest of the world.

Python scripted SOS software collects real-time digital seismic waveform data and digitally processes this inaudible wave form data into acoustic audible sound waves. This real-time monitored seismographic data is processed by time stretching by factors of 5 to 50 creating mp3, ACC or ogg-vorbis audio-files. These file formats used for streaming internet audio are further processed with dynamic-range compression and equalisation patches to represent the dynamic range of 'moment magnitude' scale determined by computational logarithmic calculation.

The final step in the seismic audio compression state creates a two channel internet audio stream which is broadcast across the internet as a live seismic radio. Listeners of SOS will experience a two channel seismic stream of real-time sonficated seismic audio. Channel one is the audio sonification of continuous real-time seismic data and channel two replays events with computer synthesized announcements indicating and describing the event the user is listening too. A listener of SOS can tune in via a web browser or portable smartphone device.

Seismic Sound References

Auditory Seismology - Florian Dombois
Earthquake Quartet #1 - Andy Michael
Earthquake Music - Zhigang Peng
Mori - Ken Goldberg
Tectonic - Micah Frank

______________________
©© D.V. Rogers 02009-02011
e: dvr@allshookup.org