About
A multi partner project to create a network of open microphones in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, relaying real-time sounds and establishing new long-term databases for public engagement and research.
BIOM brings together a group of pioneering arts and science initiatives and builds on them to establish new live streams from places of exceptional ecological and acoustic interest.
It relies on approaches developed by Locus Sonus (Aix-Marseille, France), Biosphere Soundscapes (Brisbane, Australia), Cyberforest (Tokyo, Japan), Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (Santa Cruz, California, United States) and SoundCamp (London, United Kingdom).
It provides a forum for existing work with live environmental sound and supports setting up new live streams from a variety of habitats, by developing and sharing technical information, advice, training and resources.
Live streaming is increasingly available for work in the fields of ecoacoustics, sound art and music, 'citizen-art-science' and environmental advocacy. It can be an alternative to remote field recording for ecological research. It can add value to dispersed projects, and contribute to an awareness of ecological connections, by allowing listeners to share sounds in real time and make 'forays' by ear into remote habitats.
Live streams can be recorded, as at Cyberforest, creating a long-term archive of seasonal and circadian variations, towards a real-time acoustic observatory.
Aims
Biosphere Open Microphones brings together projects working with live audio to relay environmental sounds. It aims to create an increasingly detailed and diverse account of planetary soundscapes, available in real-time via an online soundmap, as a public resource for artists, researchers and activists. The current pool of live streams spans from domestic interventions to formal research programs, across the arts and sciences. BIOM will preserve this diversity, working with local groups to set up and operate live streams, using a range of approaches from commercial broadcasting technologies to DIY streamboxes and mobile apps.
Each open microphone is also an opportunity for exploration and engagement with a particular point of listening, whether in a remote rural location or the inner city. The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere program has long provided a context for people to engage in innovative ways with their environments, and to share learning and experiences across sites. BIOM aims to use this framework to make compelling connections between places of acoustic and ecological significance, and establish long term data-sets for environmental monitoring and analysis.
Objectives
To install resilient open microphones in participating BRs, with the sounds publicly available for remote listening in real-time (with streaming servers hosted by Locus Sonus).
To record the audio from the open microphones, creating long term public data-sets for the sites
(with archive servers hosted by Cyberforest, University of Tokyo).
To analyse the sounds using the latest chirplet technology (led by SABIOD, University of Toulon).
To further develop citizen science activities in and across sites, creating innovative kinds of engagement locally and remotely (design and evaluation with Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability).
To be led by local groups in the setup and maintenance of the open microphones, making them a hub for learning and engagement in the BRs.
To support the use of the network for a range of participants, including ecoacoustic researchers, conservationists, environmental activists, advocates and artists.
To continue to develop art-science projects, residencies, exhibitions and participatory projects in relation to the live streams, as ways to expand and diversify public engagement around ecology, place and sustainability.
To grow the network through an iterative process converging with the Man and the Biosphere Strategy 2015-25 and Lima Action Plan 2016-25.
Timetable
Launch: Sound + Environment, Hull, 29/6 - 2/7 2017 soundenvironment.net/
Presentation + new streams: Braunton Burrows, N Devon BR, Balance-Unbalance, Plymouth, 21/8 - 23/8 2017 balance-unbalance2017.org/
Presentation at Perspectives on Listening, Brisbane, 7-9 December 2017
92 live streams for Soundcamp / Reveil, May 2018
Presentation and technical workshops at Ecoacoustics conference, Brisbane 2018. Convergence with the MAB Strategy 2015-25 and Lima Action Plan 2016-25 unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002474/247418E.pdf
Disseminate | Present | Engage
We envisage the production of site-specific sound art installations in public spaces and an online platform for the live streams. Field studies activities, DIY broadcasting workshops and outdoor gatherings are opportunities for new publics and volunteers to engage with the sounds and ecologies of the sites - locally and remotely. Community involvement in the setup and maintenance of the streams will make them a hub for learning, innovation, and citizen science.