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Contents

Journal SEAMUSVolume 25, Number 1-2, 2014

From the Editor2

ArticlesGradus ad Erratum: Approaching Glitch Procedures Using RTcmix

By Jerod Sommerfeldt

From “Enfant Terrible” to Elder StatesmanBy Bob Gluck and Shlomo Dubnov

Soundscapes, the Internet of Things, and the Media ArtistBy Michael Musick and Tae Hong Park

Maximally Uniform Sequences from Stochastic ProcessesBy Miller Puckette

Inaudible Sounds, Invisible SightsBy Ryan Maguire

“The Smoking Gun”: Evidence that Vladimir Ussachevsky used Chinese Timbres as the Basisfor his Electronic Music

By Carl Rahkonen and Ralph Hartsock

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Reviews of Events, Recordings, and PublicationsEvents

Koplant 2012Reviewed by George Hufnagl

2014 SEAMUS National ConferenceReviewed by Chris Peck, Ryan Maguire, Ted Coffey, and Jon Bellona

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PublicationsThe Techniques of Guitar Playing

Reviewed by Evan Johnson

Tips and TricksWebAudio Tutorial Part I: Overview

By Tae Hong Park50

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From the Editor

In the 2104 Issue of Journal SEAMUS, we have a number of articles that look back in time and offerinsights into electro-acoustic music history including a brief but telling article on one of the earliest Israelielectronic music pioneers – Joseph Tal. In From “Enfant Terrible” to Elder Statesman, contributed byBob Gluck and Shlomo Dubnov, Tal “narrates” on electro-acoustic music history in Israel and hisconnections to the Trauonium, Paul Hindemith, 12-tone compositional techniques, and electronic music.In another essay that looks at historical perspectives, Carl Rahkonen and Ralph Harstock follow electro-acoustic music trails in “Smoking Gun”: Evidence that Vladimir Ussachevsky used Chinese Timbres asthe Basis for his Electronic Music, sifting through sources including (a) archival materials, letters, andgrant proposals, (b) documentation of oral history, (c) sound inventory from the Library of Congress, and(d) brief analyses of commercial sound recordings from the composer.

We also have two articles that lie in between technical and musical electro-acoustic music spaces. Thefirst article is overview of soundscapes, IoT, and media artists contributed by Musick et al. and the secondarticle, entitled The Ghost in the MP3, looks at creative applications of lossy audio coding. This article,written by Ryan Magiure, focuses on what is lost during perceptual audio coding and explores ways tohear artifacts that are removed from the resulting compressed audio signal. More technical articles includeJerod Sommerfeldt’s Gradus ad Erratum: Approaching Glitch Procedures Using RTcmix that exploresglitch as a theme for compositional techniques using the RTcmix software system started by ColumbiaUniversity composer Brad Garton who took the Paul Lansky’s Cmix computer music language to theworld of real-time computing. Miller Puckette also contributes an article entitled Maximally UniformSequences from Stochastic Processes. Puckette’s paper focuses on the use of probability space to controlstatistical behavior in a “maximally uniform way,” rendering results that are significantly different fromthe highly non-uniform outputs of random processes.

In our Events section we have a review of the 2014 SEAMUS National Conference – written in asomewhat unusual, artistic way – that was held at Wesleyan University and a review of a Koplant concert.Our Tips & Tricks section, we introduce our first tutorial on WebAudio API, which has recently seenimpressive progress to allow its serious consideration as a computer music platform for composition,signal processing, audio analysis, visualization, and interaction.

Tae Hong Park, Editor

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SoundScapes, the Internet of Things, and the Media Artists

Michael Musick and Tae Hong Park

New York UniversityNew York, NY{ musick, thp1 }@nyu.edu

AbstractCities are growing at rapid rates andenvironmental problems associated with urbanenvironments including noise pollution are aserious threat to the wellbeing of urbanites. Withthe advent of cost-effective, powerful, compact,and widely available computing devices, whichin turn, have also contributed to the momentumof public participation in the DIY Internet ofThings, the socio-technological conditions arealtering public relationships, increasing ourability to collect data, and helping in creating asocietal model of immediate informationexchange. This paper outlines the currentconvergence of soundscape ecology, the Internetof Things or IoT, and electro-acoustic musicwhile also examining their potential for positivechange with regards to our relationship to theenvironment and nature. It concludes with a listof action items, imploring artists to embrace thischallenge in fostering a society-wideconversation.

IntroductionOur world is full of incredible sound events.Most of the sounds that occupy dailysoundscapes are created by non-human sources,categorized as biophony or geophony 4

(Villanueva-Rivera et al. 2011). These

4 There are generally considered to be threetypes of sounds that make up a soundscape.Geophony: Sounds produced by geologicalsources (wind, rains, leaves rustling).Biophony: Sounds produced by non-humanbiological sources (coyote howls, bird sounds, elkbugles).Anthrophony: Sounds produced by humans orhuman-made things.

soundscapes have provided humanity a sonicconnection to nature throughout the course ofhistory as articulated by Henry David Thoreauand John Muir, who repeatedly refer the “music”of nature throughout their writings. This musicof nature is as important to these naturalists asthe visual beauty of the landscape, the scent ofland, or the awe of the sky.

It appears, therefore, that Hetch HetchyValley, far from being a plain, common,rock-bound meadow, as many who havenot seen it seem to suppose, is a grandlandscape garden, one of Nature’s rarestand most precious mountain temples. As inYosemite, the sublime rocks of its wallsseem to glow with life, whether leaningback in repose or standing erect inthoughtful attitudes, giving welcome tostorms and calms alike, their brows in thesky, their feet set in the groves and gayflowery meadows, while birds, bees, andbutterflies help the river and waterfalls tostir all the air into music—things frail andfleeting and types of permanence meetinghere and blending, just as they do inYosemite, to draw her lovers into close andconfiding communion with her. –JohnMuir (Muir 1912) [italics by Musick andPark]

It has likewise inspired musicians to writepowerful musical compositions that receive theirbeauty from nature’s energy; from Vivaldi’s TheFour Seasons (1723), Beethoven’s SymphonyNo. 6 “Pastoral” (1808), Smetana’s TheMoldau (1875), Copland’s Appalachian Spring(1944), to the 2014 Pulitzer Prize WinningBecome Ocean by John Luther Adams. With theadvent of audio recording technologies in the20th century, the sounds of nature became directsource material for musicians, and a partner to

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perform with, as in Matthew Burtner’s EcoSonoseries (Burtner 2011).

In contrast, anthrophonic sounds have beenon a steady path to infiltrate all corners of theEarth, becoming ever-present, and increasingwith the expansion of population throughout theworld and especially cities. The reach of theseanthrophonic sounds has gone so far as tobecome part of an incessant duet competing withthe glorious symphony that was the soundscapeof such places as the Grand Canyon. Thesesounds have become the source of stress,unwanted sound (noise), and a distraction fromnature for many. However, it is also important tohighlight their potential for powerful inspirationto others. Musicians such as Luigi Russolo(Russolo 1986), Pierre Schaeffer, and FranciscoLópez have channeled these sounds forinspiration or directly used anthrophonic soundsin their works. It is clear, that the sounds andurbanization of Earth have been a source ofinspiration for some, while at the same time,have also caused many to warn of theirreversible changes that humanity is causing onthis planet. For musicians, soundscape/acousticecology researchers, scientists, and people witha keen ear, these changes have been obviousthroughout the urbanization of the world;particularly since the industrial revolution(Wrightson 2000). Not only do humansfundamentally alter natural soundscapes (Krause2012), but the soundscapes of the urbanenvironment continue to degrade as well(Murray 2013). As the world moves towards anextremely biased and city-centered society5, ourcurrent generation has the burden to bringattention to the concept of the Anthropocene era,or next geological age, marked by the sixth massextinction of species and the significant changesto this planet brought about by humans (Robbins2014). These issues raise serious environmentalpreservation concerns, which are related towidespread spatio-temporal pollution,

5 For the first time in human history, more than 50%of the global population now lives in cities and it isprojected that this number will reach 66% by 2050(United Nations Department of Economic and SocialAffairs Population Division 2014)

humanity’s wellbeing, and the question of howto measure these changes and capture Earth’spresent state before irreversible transformationstake place.

SoundscapeR. Murray Schafer, widely regarded as one ofthe main authorities of soundscape art andresearch, has led the way in advocating for therecording, archiving, and raising of awarenesstowards soundscapes, whereby informeddiscussions about soundscape preservation andsoundscape design can take place. Concernedwith the continued increase in environmentalnoise, he recognized a need to start a dialogueabout the quality, balance, and composition ofenvironmental sounds. This led to the creation ofthe term soundscape, derived from landscape(Schafer 1976), so that the study of the soundsoccurring in an environment could have a name(De Caro and Daró 2007). This term has furtherbeen “specified to [emphasize] the way [thesounds of a particular place and time are]perceived and understood by the individual, orby a society” (Truax 1999). The study of thesounds occurring within a landscape (itssoundscape), the relationship of sound sources toeach other, the identification of sound sources,and the spatio-temporal measurement of acousticevents is more specifically known as soundscapeecology or acoustic ecology (both are usedinterchangeable) (Pijanowski et al. 2011).

Ecology, as a research discipline, has founditself to be a complex interdisciplinary field ofstudy (Egerton 2001), with scientistsspecializing in natural sciences, biology,climatology, data science, statistics, computerscience, and engineering. This field also bringsnon-scientists with an invested interest inunderstanding how ecosystems work, such asindustry, natural resource managers, andgovernments. Additionally, many individualswho have strong connections to the variousecosystems that they interact with want to knowmore about their relationship to these systemsand advocate for society to take a more activeapproach in its preservation. This last groupincludes some of the most passionatecommunities that advocate for the study ofecosystems, in the form of artists who drawmuch of their inspiration from the beauty of the

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natural world. As with the communitiesdiscussed above, not only do artists stronglyadvocate for the study and preservation ofnatural resources, they also work to understandthese resources through their artistic practices,and to raise awareness in the public throughengaging outreach efforts that comment on theirperceptions and findings. Similar to the broaderfield of ecology, soundscape ecology is beingexplored by a diverse interdisciplinary group ofresearchers (Truax and Barrett 2011),government agencies, as well as artists. This isin large part due to the varied domain needs ofcapturing, measuring, analyzing, storing,sharing, and making sense of the Earth’ssoundscapes.

Individuals in communities have beencomplaining about noise throughout history.These annoying and unwanted environmentalsounds have undoubtedly increased with theexplosion of the industrial revolution andintroduction of machines that fly and move onthe ground, underground, above water, andunderwater. “Urban” noise has, however, existedever since cities started to emerge, which wereoften surrounded by protective walls, and linedwith paved cobblestone streets that can still beseen today in cities like New York and Vienna.Prior to the industrial revolution, aggravatingnoise events were produced by activities such asmerchants or travelers coming in and out ofcities, on the cobblestone streets, during themiddle of the night. With the industrialrevolution, unwanted noise began to occur moreoften, and with the second industrial revolution,along with the electrification of the city, theurban environment was transformed into citiesthat “never sleep.” Government agencies haveattempted to address city noises by developingnoise codes and measurement techniques(MetCalfe 2013). The results have beensomewhat unsuccessful, primarily due to thespatio-temporal nature of sound – now you hearit, now you don’t. This is further made difficultas cities are constantly changing in response tothe economic needs driving technology,innovation, and urban design.

Internet of Things (IoT)The IoT phenomenon could be regarded as moreevolutionary than revolutionary, brought about

by cost-effective computing devices, morepowerful processors, facilitation of datacommunication ubiquity via the Internet,miniaturization of hardware, and accessibility aswell as fast learning curves of new computercoding languages.

This evolution may have significant impact tothe urban setting, in ways not yet imaginable.There is strong evidence suggesting that thedevelopment of an “Internet of Things”(Anderson, Rainie, and Duggan 2014) willcontinue, resulting in practically every thingbeing connected to each other; essentiallyenabling a complex meshwork of machine-to-machine, human-to-machine, and machine-to-human communication, data collection/sharing,and ultimately a machine-to-world engagement.The amount of data generated from all thingsconnected in the next ten years will dwarf thealready astounding amount of data that hasaccumulated on the Internet since the early1990’s (Barrett 2012). This hybrid world, cyber-physical, and electro-digital ecosystem will offertremendous opportunities for both positive andnegative changes in the social fabric of humanityas well as our relationship to Earth. Although itis unclear what the forthcoming changes willexactly be, there is significant consensus that itwill be an inevitability (Anderson, Rainie, andDuggan 2014).

Microphones EverywhereSince the second industrial revolution and theadvent of mobile recording devices, artists,urban planners, and researchers have beenattempting to “record” the world. Many of theearly pieces within the Electro-Acoustic Music(EAM)6 canon as well as orchestral works fromthe end of the 19th century through the first halfof the 20th century utilized natural recordings(Schaeffer Etude Aux Chamins de Fer, RespighiPines of Rome, Verése Poeme Electronique).Within the last 20 years, the use of pre-recorded

6 Electro-Acoustic Music (EAM) in this article“refers to any music in which electricity has hadsome involvement in sound registration and/orproduction other than that of simple microphonerecording or amplification.” (Landy 1999)

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material for music has become a standardtechnique within EAM.

The last 20 years have also seen manyongoing attempts to measure and quantify noise.This research has its lineage in the work ofSchafer’s World Soundscape Project (WSP) 7

(Truax 2007), which was based out of SimonFrasier University in Canada, and includes manyimportant soundscape figures includingHildegard Westerkamp and Barry Truax. Asmore artists joined this effort, and the goals ofsoundscape art, soundscape research, andsoundscape ecology became more clearlydefined, the WSP became the World Forum forAcoustic Ecology (WFAE)8 (Truax and Barrett2011). Many of the early participants associatedwith the WSP were artists, troubled with whatthey recognized as the negatively changingsoundscape of Vancouver, Canada. This ledthem to champion an idea of archivingsoundscapes of urban and natural locations, sothat future generations would be able to hearwhat the world used to sound like. These artistsalso pushed two additional goals. The first wasto educate the public about how and why tolisten to soundscapes, which Schafer referred toas “ear cleaning.” The second goal was to raiseawareness about soundscapes throughsoundscape art (Schafer 1993).

Acknowledging that the IoT is already hereand growing continuously, and looking at thecurrent trends in soundscape research around theworld, it becomes clear that acoustic sensors willbe part of this global sensor network. There hasbeen an increasing amount of activity concernedwith capturing measuring, and analyzingsoundscape data as can also be seen in projectslike Citygram (Park et al. 2012; Park et al. 2013;Park et al. 2014; Musick, Turner, and Park 2014)lead by Tae Hong Park. More importantly, manyof these projects have recognized the importanceand technological possibility of permanentlydeployed continuous collection remote sensingdevices (Park et al. 2013; Park et al. 2014;Musick, Turner, and Park 2014; Holland 2012;Gomes and Tudela 2013; Klein 2008). This isexciting in many ways but particular as our

7 http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/wsp.html8 http://www.wfae.net/

current technologies provide an opportunity forresearchers to better understand the nature andquality of soundscapes over many timescales,and granularities of space.

Soundscapes as a Natural ResourceWSP’s call to action was positively received bymany artistic communities and many individualsand groups have researched, attempted toimplement, recorded and advocated for thecapturing of soundscapes. In regards to naturalsoundscapes, the United States’ National ParksService (NPS) has created a special division,The Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division,which has been working to capture acoustic datarepresenting the diversity of the United StatesNational Parks System (Reid and Olson 2013).This group, and hence the NPS, have recognizedthe soundscapes of these pristine areas of natureas shared national “Natural Resources,” in thesame way that the forests, wildlife, and uniquegeological formations of these parks areconsidered to be natural resources worthprotecting (Natural Sounds and Night SkiesDivision 2011).

In order to address this recognition, the NPShas created a standard system for the capturingand measuring of soundscape data. Thedeployed soundscape-data collection systemscan withstand the tough varied and extremeclimate that these parks offer, from the heat ofJoshua Tree to the cold of Denali National Park.They are also capable of running up to 30continuous days, and in addition to collectingraw audio data in an MP3 format, they collectSound Pressure Level (SPL) data, andenvironmental data such as wind speed,humidity and temperature, since these can effectthe quality of the SPL data, as well as the clarityof the audio recordings (Natural Sounds andNight Skies Division 2013). In addition to theefforts by the NPS, there has been a significantamount of work by soundscape ecologyresearchers, who have also developed unique,weatherproof systems to collect and understandsound data (Krause, Gage, and Joo 2011;Pijanowski et al. 2011; Hayes et al. 2013;Fristrup and Mennitt 2012).

The importance of this work cannot beemphasized enough. Among the most importantfindings that both Krause and the Natural Sound

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and Night Skies Division have found is theeffects of unnatural anthrophonic sounds (Reidand Olson 2013). In particular, Krause was ableto measure a natural, pristine forest soundscapebefore and after a so-called “environmentallyfriendly” selective-logging operation and foundsignificant differences in the frequency spectrumof the soundscape (2012). Prior to the loggingoperation, the soundscape showed frequencyactivity within the entire frequency range of theecosystem. Whereas afterwards, there were largenotches in frequency bands, suggesting thehealth of the ecosystem had been severelydamaged (Servick 2014). Dumyahn andPijnowski provide a lengthy survey of theresearch that has shown the negative effects towildlife of “degraded soundscapes” (2011). Thisbody of literature demonstrates that the maskingeffects of anthrophony-based sounds alterspredator avoidance abilities, causes severe stressto species, and produces modified patterns inboth frequency of communication and time ofcommunication, all of which can have chain-reaction consequences on the communicationspace and abilities of other species. In a healthysoundscape, each species has its “own niche”(Tennesen 2008), and noise in these frequencybands can result in lowered biodiversity anddeclines in populations of certain species.Clearly this is a contributing factor in thetransition to the Anthropocene era.

The Urban SoundscapeAt the same time that preservation and ecology-minded people have been attempting to collectnatural soundscapes data, many researchers havebeen working to find ways of tracking theacoustic properties of urban soundscapes (Parket al. 2011; Boren et al. 2013; Brunow 2010;Daniel Steele, Krijnders, and Guatavino 2013;Holland 2012; Fecht 2004). The goal of theseprojects is to better understand the qualities andcharacter of these soundscapes, and continuecontributing to a growing body of literaturelinking excessive urban sound with negativehealth consequences, crime, lowered real-estatevalues, quality-of-life, and decrease inproductivity. The hope is that these findings, anda real-time ability to capture urban soundscapeswill lead to informed practices, and perhapsmore opportunities for composing and designing

healthy urban soundscapes (D Steele, Luka, andGuastavino 2012) that promote improvement inquality-of-life.

These recent projects, along with the activesoundscape research projects occurring aroundthe world, demonstrate a strong desire todevelop and deploy an IoT type system that iscapable of constant acoustic monitoring for thepurposes of research and increasedunderstanding of soundscapes. With the everdecreasing size of single-board computers,coupled with their increasing power, and the factthat as of 2010 over 90% of the worldspopulation was covered by a cellular signal(World Telecommunication/ICT DevelopmentReport 2010) the technological implementationof such a system has become possible.

Big DataA meshwork of acoustic remote sensing devices(RSDs) placed throughout urban and rural areashas the potential to produce significant changesin how society views its relationship to thesoundscapes of nature and the composition ofsocieties own urban soundscape. However, asviscerally experienced while developingCitygram’s sensor network technologies, thereare a number of practical and ethical questionsto consider during the evolution of thesesystems.

Real-time sensor network systems collect animmense amount of data. Even if a distributivecomputing techniques are employed to performfeature extraction/reduction on the individualRSDs prior to streaming, as is accomplished inCitygram,, the amount of collected data from ameshwork of this size will be vast. This amountof data is the realm of “Big Data” or “largedatasets that are beyond the capability oftraditional software tools to quickly manage,process, and analyze” (Hayes et al. 2013). Inaddition to the problems faced by individualresearch teams, issues also arise in creatingdatabases that are compatible between similarprojects, or freely/easily accessible so thatresearchers can look for large patterns betweenaggregated datasets (Overpeck et al. 2011).Climate database engineers will need to solvethese technical problems through collaborationwith related fields such as database and networkengineering.

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The difficulty of collecting and storing thedata is no small task, but the more challengingproblem is the analysis of the data for patterns,and useful information. This will rely heavily oncollaboration with the Music InformationRetrieval (MIR) and Machine-Learningcommunities. As such, Park and his team arecurrently focusing on an area they callSoundscape Information Retrieval (SIR), whichadapts MIR research to SIR (Park et al. 2014).What makes SIR particularly difficult as aclassification and analysis research topic is thefact that in soundscapes, any and every sound ispossible. This is especially the case for urbansoundscapes, which include antrophonies,biophonies, geophonies, keynotes, music, andany other sound imaginable.

EthicsThe development of Big Data, the IoT, and adeployment of “microphones everywhere” hasthe potential to bring about a significant socialbenefit, as outlined above. However, it also hasthe potential to create a situation in which aselect few members of society have the power tocontrol, use, and perhaps even, abuse, this data.

Responsibility to the PlanetThose who draw their spiritual power from theplanet, or recognize the importance ofpreserving the limited natural resources thatexist advocate for society to recognize itsresponsibility to Earth. In a society that hasbecome dominated by the idea that logic andscientific knowledge are the only ways ofknowing reality, it becomes important to provideknowledge in relation to the goals of aneconomically driven society.

PrivacyIt is clear that there are significant privacyconcerns with the coming of the IoT era and theever-growing importance of Big Data (Andersonand Rainie 2014; Crump 2014; Polonetsky2012). Many organizations across the spectrum,including governments, corporations, specialinterest groups, and research labs haverecognized the importance and the power of BigData driven decision-making strategies,including advertising and marketing. Lawenforcement agencies have seen the potential for

crime prevention available through analysis ofBig Data and profiling algorithms.“Microphones everywhere” would potentiallyfeed these entities with private data that could beused for purposes of economic gain and societal“control.” These possibilities raise significantconcerns about the deployment of continuousacoustic sensing devices, about the types of datathey would collect, the security of this data, theopenness of this data, and specifically the roleraw audio signals will play.

Electro-Acoustic MusicMusicians and artists have a long history ofadvocating for, and protecting Earth. This isclear from the work of the WSP. In regards tosoundscape research and the IoT, electro-acoustic musicians and media artists will beheavily involved with both. Schafer’s ear-cleaning is an attempt to teach individuals howto listen to their soundscapes. This work hasbeen furthered by Hildegard Westerkamp, andher influential practice of leading “soundwalks”that challenge participants to hear the world inunexpected or foreign ways (Westerkamp 2011).Some artists will continue this work, whileothers will continue to champion an ideal thatholds ‘art’ as a sacred expression of theindividual.

Art for Art’s SakeMany musicians have followed in Brahms’sfootsteps and declared that music needs nonarrative or message to be considered valuable.Pierre Schaeffer and his concept of musiqueconcréte encouraged music production that wasnot intended to reference the original sources ofthe sounds in the real world or to be taken assigns representing higher ideals (Demers 2010).Instead, his acousmatic presentation and call for“reduced-listening” emphasized a focus on thenotion of the “sound object” where he askedlisteners to explore the sounds in relation to thebeauty within, their complexity, and theircompositional arrangement to each other withoutconsidering the external sources or notions ofsigns (Schaeffer 1966).

Francisco López and Toshiya Tsunoda, two ofthe more prolific soundscape artists, havechampioned similar viewpoints. In their writingsabout sound art, they suggest listeners to

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emphasize the beauty of the sound for what it is,rather than focusing on its origins (Demers2009). Tsunoda prefers not to work in locationsof social significance in order to distance his artfrom meaning not part of the sound source itself.However, the scale of location of his workscreates great opportunities for listeners toexplore meaning in the size of soundscapes. Onenotable piece, Small Sand-Stream On Beach(2008), allows the listener to hear the delicatemovements and momentary ring of pebbles asthey are blown across sand, and interplay withthe complex harmonics of the wind and thespecks of sand striking the microphone.Likewise, his Air Vibration in a Bent Pipe(1997) allows the listener to experience thesoundscape inside a curved pipe, likely under abridge, where the wind finds specificfrequencies, which are all encompassing mixedwith the knock of the bridge’s boards overheadas they shake the listener. López distanceshimself from place by giving his compositionsnon-specific names, such as his hour-longcomposition untitled #244 (2010), where heexplores the various soundscapes captured aboveand below water.

Following in this lineage, Big Data has alsobeen used to create non-referential music. Oneexample comes from Brian House, who used hislocation data that Google had collected for a fullyear’s worth of time. The result was acomposition he calls the Quotidian Record(Brooks 2013). This data was then used to createan algorithmic composition, whose harmonicprogression, and time variation are mapped tothe location, and speed of movement. This wasreleased as a limited edition vinyl record.Although he claims no commentary on the valueof Big Data and that the mappings were madepurely for artistic reasons, he clearly makes astatement about the nature of data and privacythrough the release of such a work to a nowesoteric medium, in such a limited number, withonly excerpts released on-line.

Educational AwarenessIt is not an exaggeration to state that there aremany musicians who use their art to disseminateand share narratives, meaning or messages;referencing concepts of preservation, natureitself, ideals about the importance of nature, or

warn of the potential dangers of the changingplanet. These values and referential choices havebecome the topic of significant debate amongartists, especially musicians as well as soundartists. Many of these artists call out the Art forArt’s Sake group for failing to recognize theirethical responsibility to educate the public,foster conversation, or at least make them moreaware of the world (Gigliotti, 1996). Many ofthese artists consider the point of art aschallenging existing systems, pushing theparticipant conceptually, and encouraging abetter society and ecosystem. The judgmentsseem to run especially strong against thoseartists who have continued to work within theold system of functionally harmonic major-minor music who choose not to utilize thiscommon, comfortable language to raiseawareness.

Kim-Cohen challenged his audience in his2012 International Computer Music Conference(ICMC) Keynote Essay to rejoin with the visualarts and move towards a conceptual frameworkthat challenges notions of our relationship andconnection to society at large and to nature(2014). He singles out John Cage, who pickedup a musical link from the conceptual art ofMarcel Duchamp, in pieces such as his 4’33”(1952) and Imaginary Landscape series (1939-1952). These pieces forced listeners to considerwhat music could be, and to find beauty in theirsurroundings, or the found sounds that werecreated as organized sound.

Popular music, and much of popular classicalor “academic” music has, perhaps, somewhatfallen into the traps that Kim-Cohen encourageshis audience to consider breaking out of. LeighLandy, who’s research includes examining theintention and reception of new music (2007), hascreated a body of research around teaching theskills needed for listening to soundscapes andnew music. This is the approach that somemusicians are taking to educating their audienceabout nature and soundscape. By and large, itseems that the general public has “forgotten” theability to listen to natural soundscapes, perhaps,in part due to the notion of compression of time,where the modern individual has little time toappreciate and soak in the surroundingsoundscapes that has been bequeathed to us byMother Nature. Instead, it seems that much of

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the music or Muzak is being broadcast throughthe various media channels driven mostly byeconomically aligned ventures, that in turn, seekto pacify the audience that is on the receivingside (Westerkamp, 2011). While the standardpedagogy of modern education still focuses onteaching music genres that have been fadingsince electronically-driven music made anappearance in the beginning of the 20th century,the disconnect between what is taught in theclassrooms and what is broadcast on publicmedia channels is concerning in many ways, butespecially on the grounds of limiting – albeitironic, as technology has allowed one to accessall types of music at this day and age – thediversity of musical genres and styles that enrichhumanity, culture, society, and art. The keys toawareness are through education; includingsmall steps that can be taken to share the conceptof music including “organised sound”. This canbe used to engage society with the idea ofnatural soundscapes as another form of “music.”

An important step in preserving naturalsoundscapes is for society to recognize theirvalue as natural resource that can, if not careful,be lost forever. One way of accomplishing this isby creating new connections between membersof society and the soundscapes, perhaps in waysdiscussed above. Another way of preservingthese natural resources is through meaningfulpolicy decisions driven by the data collected inIoT type deployments. In order for IoT to morepositively contribute in the collectivecomposition of urban soundscapes and help inthe preservation of our natural sonicenvironment, the public must be familiar withthe technology, trust the data collection process,and know the potential benefits that are capablefrom this technological evolution. This is why itis important to educate people about how theycan connect with soundscapes, why these naturalresources matter, and how real-time big data viathe IoT can assist in this process. This is one ofthe philosophical ideals behind the Citygramproject – transparency. Through transparency,and buy-in from community, Park believes that aproject like Citygram can indeed be scaledtowards creating a real-time world soundmapcontributed to by individuals, groups,communities, cities, and nations; in essencemaking such an endeavor, a community-owned,

community-driven, community-sustained, andcommunity-shared project. This is also the goalof artistic works such as the Citygram project’sinstallation composition, InSeE (InteractiveSoundscape Environment) or Musick’s SonicSpaces Project. The former work uses theCitygram sensor network, its API, and real-timespatio-temporal data to drive continuouslychanging hybrid soundscapes thatsimultaneously reflect and connect distantgeographic locations through audiovisualstrategies to coalesce into a poly-sensoryexperience at the installation site.9 As part of hisIRCAM Artist Residency, Park is taking thisidea a step further in developing the InSeEsystem that will allow not only passiveparticipation but also active participationthrough spatio-temporal acoustic data sharingand remote performance possibilities.Alternatively, the Sonic Spaces Project usesprinciples from natural ecosystems andsoundscapes to compose interactive sonicecosystem installations. 10 These compositionschallenge participants to reconsider theirrelationships to natural ecosystems andsoundscapes, while also encouraging them topractice their ability to hear the emergent musicresulting from these relationships and theinteraction of all agents in the system (Musick2014).

Soundscapes, the IoT, and The Role of theMedia ArtistMarshall McLuhan’s controversial bookUnderstanding Media makes the bold claim that“the medium is the message” and then goes onto show how the medium, or rather thetechnological advancements within society, haveled to significant social changes and resulted inthe direct structuring of society (1966). One ofthe most important concepts outlined in thisbook is the expansion of society with each newmajor communication innovation away from theimmediate sharing of knowledge that occurredin the tribal village. However, with the computer

9 https://vimeo.com/12391277010 michaelmusick.com/sonic_spaces_project

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and the instantaneous nature of the Internet, thedissemination of information – and hence thespread of society – is instead imploding back toa system of instantaneous sharing. Thisinstantaneous information sharing among vastmembers of society that the Internet enables iscausing society to return to the “village”, albeit adigitally mediated village.

Additionally, McLuhan also makes a claimthat is pertinent to this discussion in a debatefrom 1968 arguing that:

“Artists are the only ones who know theircentury. They are able to see theconsequences of technology and theinfluence they have on society beforeanyone else. There will come a day whenthe scientists of the world come knockingon the artist’s studio asking for theirinsight and wisdom.” (“Norman Mailer andMarshall McLuhan Debating 1968” 1968)

Some media artists will be able to see thedangers and benefits of the IoT and this shouldencourage them to use their unique perspectivesto take an instrumental role in the evolution ofthis technology.

These ideas imply a role the media artistcould pursue in order to foster conversations andactions of societal responsibilities to Nature, andthe responsibility of society to continually createa better quality of life for each other. Theseinclude:

1) Practice openness with respect to datacollection/sharing and create opportunitiesfor open discussions of privacy. As artistsdevelop these IoT systems, standards increating transparency in analysis and openaccess to data should be considered (alreadyadvocated by the git repository model).Likewise, they could also contribute tofinding opportunities to use this uniqueplatform and artworks created from thesesystems to foster meaningful conversationsabout privacy in the changing world.

2) Artists can take a significant role indemonstrating the societal and natural valueof developing IoT systems that can interface

with the world. The best way forward incollecting data is through transparency andcommunity engagement. The only way thatdata can be collected, is if society allows itto be collected. In other words, societyneeds to trust the collection paradigms of thedata-collectors. This can be accomplished byoffering tools for active participation andencouraging awareness of the benefits thiscollected data can provide. Artists cansignificantly contribute in demonstrating thispotential of benefit and positive changethrough successful results and transparency.

3) Artists can continue to help society onapproaches to “listening to” and “hearing themusic of” nature. The soundwalks ofWesterkamp and her followers are critical tothis activity. Likewise, artists can also helpengage the public, as Landy has done, andteach them to listen to music and naturalsoundscapes with similar ears.

4) Artists can also continue creating art thatreminds society of their relationship tonature. Two of the most active and engagingartists participating in this effort areMatthew Burtner and John Luther Adams.Burtner’s EcoSono series explores the soundpotentials of unique locations on earth byturning those locations into the musicalmaterial. These compositions may use theprocessed sound of microphones burieddeep in the sand, the full array of sounds thatare possible from the infinite qualities ofsnow, or the harmonics of wind over a boatto ground an improvisation in the tonalcenter of nature. Adams likewise, hascreated a multitude of electro-acousticpieces that utilize nature or are inspired fromnature in their creation. The best example ofthis is his Pulitzer Prize winningcomposition Become Ocean for threeorchestras. This piece imagines andharnesses the immense power of the oceanas it asks its listeners to consider thepossibility of our world “becoming ocean.”

5) Finally, artists can continue to embracenature as an inspiration for their artistic

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process in ways that allow the public tolearn about nature and/or society. AgostinoDi Scipio’s Audible Ecosystemics Project(Solomos 2014), Michael Musick’s SonicSpaces, and Tae Hong Park’s creation of theInSeE concept accomplish this by usingprinciples of ecosystem design and energytransfer to create complex interconnecteddynamical sonic ecosystems that allowparticipants to explore relationships ofecosystemic ideas and environments.

ConclusionThe world is changing as it always has andalways will. The communication medium that isthe “Internet of Things” will also likely continueto grow and change social relationships andperhaps shift society back towards the villagemodel of information sharing. The details ofhow the IoT will impact the myriad of outcomesis difficult to say for certain. This fact aloneshould encourage media artists and electro-acoustic musicians to apply their creativity,imagination, know-how, and knowledge tocontribute towards creation of a stronger society,and one that recognizes its partnership withplanet Earth. We hope that this paper, whichbriefly outlines the current convergence ofsoundscape ecology, the Internet of Things,electro-acoustic music, and the potential role ofthe media artist, will help in making a smallcontribution in sparking more conversationabout how to approach these topics within thearts community and beyond.

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