Title; Dromology of orbital bodies: sound composition, using commercial and military satellites tracking technologies.

Year: 2018-2019

Core Area; Space-Earth Interactions

background (problem / need / opportunity):

Problem: This project is part of my doctoral project entitled Imanências Espectrais: Reflexão sobre o Pós-Digital nas Artes Sonoras in progress, funded by FCT: Foundation for Science and Technology. It starts from my experience with sound spatialization for multiple audio channels and the need to establish elements of sound production and autonomous trajectories starting from the concept of exteriority and telematics. Thus, this project reflects on the sound spatialisation where routes, trajectories and movements are developed, which in this case are mapped and sonified in real time by means of orbital motion of the satellites in real time, articulating in a direct relation with devices external to the planet earth that represent human activity at the limits of the planet and the universe.

Need: To develop this project, it was necessary to first understand what technical possibilities were needed to develop the project and this connection. The solution was to find an IP with the information of all commercial and military satellites and have an update in real time. This issue was critical to the project because composition and spatialization had to be generated in real time. Access to “information flows” was therefore critical to the toning processes involved. This situation has been solved with the development of a software and hardware that allows to access in real time this information with also to choose the satellite that is to be followed in real time. These issues were solved in partnership with my collaborators Christopher Zlaket (1992) of Arizona State University, specialized in interface design and David Stingley (1993) of MIT, specialized in computer science.

Methodology; Exploring the technical means of hardware and software to establish a telematic relation with civil or military satellites as elements that have autonomy, an orbit and can generate indeterminism in the production of the musical-sound work. In this way, the research allowed the development of an autonomous technological system to generate sound starting from the processes of sonification and the conversion into musical sound elements of spatialisation to integrate in my processes of artistic experimentation, reinforcing the practical theoretical investigation that I develop. Using the Arduino one r3 to a Midi shield as three possibilities. Input/Output and through conversations for Midi. Thus, using the midi protocol we could control virtual sound and image software as well as analog synthetics hardware. This practical, theoretical project, serves to construct discourses in art from where they immerse in concepts such as telematics and electromagnetic fields of information, accentuating the context of the impacts of technology as a culture in society and its implications, social, political and meaning. It drives concepts such as post-media and post-digital and their consequent analyzes and discursive implications in the 21st century.

Results; Construction of technical hardware and software to expand the possibilities of sonification in the sound arts. Presentation of practical examples developed as the built system.

The impact of the research work; Contribute conceptually to the understanding of the concept of post-digital through the artistic and technical device based on a practical, theoretical investigation that by means of sonification processes expands the fields of representation in the art and the formal means in the musical sound expression.