Terrella
2022
Self-generating music app, live data, projection screen, seating elements, ionisation unit
Lead artist: Michaela Gleave
Composer: Amanda Cole
Programmer: Warren Armstriong
Seating elements: Katy B. Plummer
Additional programming: Code on Canvas
Terrella is an immersive sound installation that ‘plays’ the Earth’s electromagnetic field in real time. Using live data from geomagnetic monitoring stations across the planet, the project sonifies the frequencies of the Earth, listening to its fluctuations and turning them into music. The work is a transdisciplinary collaboration with a composer, programmer, designer, and data technicians, involving scientific partners from Geoscience Australia, the South African Space Agency, the British Geological Society and INTERMAGNET, a global network of geomagnetic observatories.
Terrella takes the form of a shifting mesh of sound and imagery that connects with the tremendous energetic forces of nature. A reverberant 5-channel soundscape makes audible electromagnetic flows otherwise undetectable to humans, allowing us to hear solar storms and bear witness to the phenomena that create auroras. Data visualisations progress through waves, electron flows and fizzing particles in a tonal palette derived from the core of the Earth to the outer edges of space. The air is subtly charged with negative ions that cleanse and purify the atmosphere.
The Earth’s electromagnetic field is a circuit of energy that surrounds the planet, protecting it from solar radiation. One of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetism is a physics that is separate from human concerns, and an underlying substrate of reality. Many organisms including bacteria, salmon, migratory birds, bees, and butterflies attune to it for orientation, navigation and survival.
Terrella reminds us that Earth is an active agent, alive within a networked planetary system. This sensorial and affective installation shifts our focus beyond anthropocentric concerns. In the age of climate crisis, the work calls for embodied listening, connecting us in sympathetic resonance with the energetic vibrations of the planet.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.