Acoustic Data in Marine Research
Out of all the senses, sound is the one that travels the furthest in the oceans. Because of this, acoustic methods are becoming a critical tool that scientists at the HIFMB and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) are using to better understand the Polar seas and the marine biodiversity within.
When sight is impossible, acoustic data can give us invaluable information on breeding habits, migration patterns and the ways in which anthropogenic noise negatively affects marine environments.
Studying the soundscapes of the seas can tell us a lot about our oceans and the state that they are in.
But once we have this data, other than analysing it scientifically, what else can we do with it? How else can we share these otherworldly sounds with the rest of society?
Art Science Collaboration
In an exciting new art science collaboration, HIFMB and AWI will be teaming up with one of the world’s largest sound projects, Cities and Memory, to make available 50 sound clips from our Arctic and Antarctic seas collection for sound artists and musicians from all over the world to creatively interpret.
Artists will get to choose a sound clip to work with, then will have until the end of September to complete a piece of sound art which will contribute to an album of finished compositions.
By doing so, they will give alternating and new perspectives to our data, reimagining these sounds for a new audience and raising awareness of the soundscapes of the polar seas to publics beyond the scientific community.
The sound clips chosen for the project were recorded from hydrophones located in the Arctic and Antarctic seas and consist of a mixture of biotic, geophonic and human-made sounds.
To apply to be part of this project please click here.
Polar Sounds is a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).