Volcano Dance A Creative Union of Science Technology

Volcano Dance A Creative Union of Science, Technology & Art Tom Fryer (DANTE, UK) TERENA NETWORKING CONFERENCE 2010 Arts and Humanities Session Monday, 31 st May 2010 connect • communicate • collaborate

Volcano Eruptions: The Local Effects Power outages, water contamination Evacuation; effects on health of local population; loss of life Destruction of homes, property, farmland… Loss of livelihood connect • communicate • collaborate

Volcano Eruptions: The Effects Further Afield Acid rain Air travel restrictions Weather and climate Economic disruption connect • communicate • collaborate

Predicting Volcano Eruptions: Methodologies Seismic activity Gas emissions Ground deformation Thermal monitoring Hydrology Remote satellite sensing connect • communicate • collaborate

Volcano Sonification: Seismograms to Melodies To make volcano seismograms audible To correlate seismic stages with sound patterns / melodies To discover the “signature tune” of an eruption Italy, 2001 University of Catania and the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) Sonification of Mount Etna connect • communicate • collaborate

Data Sonification: The Process Data sonification is the representation of data by sound (waveforms, melodies) The acoustic counterpart of graphs 10 15 15 10 8 4 1 1 4 connect • communicate • collaborate

Converting the Seismogram to Music connect • communicate • collaborate

Etna Sonification Score: The score inherits the same characteristics (regularities, behaviour) of the seismogram connect • communicate • collaborate

Sonification on Computing Grids A one-second seismic sample generates 120 MB of data. 40 seconds of seismic data = Converting seismic data into sound waves is computationally demanding. Grids provide the necessary computing power and distributed data storage: EGEE, EELA/EELA 2 and EUMEDGRID supported by GÉANT, EUMEDCONNECT and Red. CLARA connect • communicate • collaborate

From Science to ‘Singing Volcanoes’ Volcano scores are also musically interesting! • They inherit the richness of nature • They can be played by any musician Science The Arts Ecuador, 2006 Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) joins sonification project: Mount Tungurahua Music from Mt. Tungurahua played at Launch of Ecuador’s National Research and Education Network (CEDIA) connect • communicate • collaborate

From ‘Singing’ to ‘Dancing Volcanoes’ Washington D. C. , 2008 ‘Singing Volcanoes’ sparks ‘The Mountain’ Dance Performance by City. Dance Ensemble The Arts Science Philippine choreographer, Jason Garcia Ignacio, inspires involvement of Philippine researchers in Sonification Project: Volcano Monitoring & Eruption Prediction Division, PHIVOLCS, Philippines Mounts Pinatubo and Mayon connect • communicate • collaborate

The Mountain: From Volcano to Stage Music based on seismograms of 4 volcanoes: Etna, Tungurahua, Pinatubo, Mayon); Choreography by Jason Garcia Ignacio The Mountain: world premiere 10 -11 Sept 2009, The Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA Website: www. volcanodance. org connect • communicate • collaborate

Volcano Sonification The Status Today The work continues: Researchers have started to identify correlations between seismograms and volcanic activity, including eruptions. The involvement of more volcanoes will contribute to attempts to discover volcano signature tunes. connect • communicate • collaborate