Vostok Life Forms
"In January 1998, the collaborative ice-drilling project between Russia, the United States, and France at the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica yielded the deepest ice core ever recovered, reaching a depth of 3,623 m."
To create this piece, I used the ChucK programming language for the sonification of data from the Vostok Ice Core. The raw data signifies the record concentration of CO2 found in the ice according to its age.
I used both the "mono" and "polyphonic" players in ChucK and I generated 10 sonifications with different sets of parameters. For every file, I changed the sound generator (SinOsc, TriOsc, SawOsc, SqrOsc, Phasor and Noise), the sample time (between 10-2000ms) and the mapping of data (amplitude and frequency). I recorded each file with Audacity and, then, I imported the files in Logic Pro. This was used only for arranging the files into a composition, with two exceptions: I changed the volumes of the files during the piece and I added a Reverb effect at the end.
The piece depicts a fictional world of microscopic organisms that is yet to be discovered under the Vostok ice. I composed it in a ternary form (ABA) with a small coda at the end, which is a "solo" of the original data set.
Source: Historical Carbon Dioxide Record from the Vostok Ice Core