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Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Steve has discovered a Campus Point Cam.

Bob Sturm, who has worked at CDIP before working at UCSB, has produced a pretty epic CD from CDIP bouy data. The CD, "Music From the Ocean", is available on Bob's site and there are many .mp3 excerpts to listen to also. An excerpt from the back of the CD:

"The Pacific Ocean is an immensely complex environment that has enourmous impact on the entire planet Earth. Tides are predictable for the next 10,000 years, but the interactions of the ocean and atmosphere make week-long predictions of ocean conditions difficult at best. Winds grip the ocean surface creating wave-trains hundreds of kilometers long, which often travel thousands of kilometers to finally break, releasing the embodied solar energy on some distant shore. Deep water ocean buoys record these wave energies and make predicting coastal conditions easier. This data is extremely important to coastal engineers, mariners, military, scientists, commercial fishing, and surfers.

This CD is a demonstration and exploration of turning this data into sound and music. Listening to the ocean creates a new way of understanding it. Energy coming from storms thousands of kilometers away, local wind swells occurring in the afternoons, and seasonal and regional differences along the West coast of the USA, can be heard in the sonifications of the data. Composing for the ocean is also explored by using the buoy as performer and ocean as conductor. The results can be delicate wisps to massive jolts depending on the location of the buoy and time of year. "

link to this


Santa Barbara Surfing. Created by Tim Maddux. Continued by Pope.