Weather Station 1995

sound installation with 310 piezo loudspeakers, computer-controlled MIDI instruments and various light, temperature and humidity sensors

Developed at the Institut für Elektronische Musik Graz.
Programming assistance: Norbert Schnell (IEM).
Interface hardware: Holger Becker and Winfried Haushalter (Cologne).
Presentation: Magiorama ´95, Groningen, October 1995.

In this work, several hundred small "piezo" (high-frequency) loudspeakers are linked through a computer to outdoor light and weather sensors. The loudspeakers are arranged on the walls of the installation space in plant-like configurations. According to incoming temperature, humidity and light conditions a computer program determines which sounds are played by the installation and controls each sound's musical parameters — such as its loudness, its duration, its musical register and its rate of occurrence. A decrease in outdoor temperature may, for example, cause certain sounds to dye away and others to take their place; a change in light may directly influence the loudness of a particular sound element; a rise in humidity may cause a particular sound element to become more active or to slowly move to a higher register. All of the relationships which exist between weather conditions and sound elements are variable, and are predetermined for each installation within the computer software.

What results is a "weather-controlled composition", one in which sound elements continuously react to changes in outdoor light, temperature and humidity. Ambient weather conditions are transformed into a sound environment. The experienced listener may even learn to recognise the programmed relationships between weather conditions and sounds, and thereby receive a "weather report" by listening to and interpreting the sounds of the installation.

Weather Station is the first of my plant-like installations to incorporate elements of "life-like" activity, with these plant-like configurations now actively responding to changes in ambient weather and light conditions. Work on this application was carried out during 1995 at the Institut für Elektronische Musik in Graz. The computer program was written in MAX. Weather Station was first presented in Groningen, Holland within the Magiorama exhibition in October 1995.

Weather Station, Magiorama '95, Groningen, Holland. October 1995.
(Photo: T. Seelig)