“Trees” Innovative Nature Surround Sound Installation | North Beach

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join Maeder and Zweifel for the opening reception of “trees: Downy Oak” on July 24, 2012, at swissnex San Francisco and hear about the research project that led to the exhibit and the process of creating this artistic soundscape. Doors open at 6:30pm and the reception begins at 7:30pm with words of welcome and short presentations by Marcus Maeder and Roman Zweifel.

By needling tiny microphones beneath the surface of trees, much is revealed about their physiological processes, and about the forest ecosystem in general. In the exhibition “trees: Downy Oak”, Marcus Maeder, a researcher at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology at the Zurich University of the Arts, and Roman Zweifel, a forest and tree expert at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape, demonstrate the three-dimensional audio matrix they created for data sonification experiments—a walk-in forest alive with sound.

The pair collected sounds from a single type of tree, the Downy Oak, and brought these together with plant measurements in a grid of omnidirectional loudspeakers. The exhibit is not only intriguing for scientists, but also helps the public gain a deeper insight into the inner workings of trees.

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