In November 2018, Karen Mair ran a Listening Lab during Science Saturday public outreach event, at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The Listening Lab 'Rock music - Exploring Geology using sound’ was linked with the popular exhibition Rip It Up: The Story of Scottish Pop and featured a selection of geoscience data sonifications (where data is turned into sound) created during a collaboration with composer Natasha Barrett over recent years.
The hands on audio display consisted of 6 headphone stations where members of the public could listen to spatial soundscapes of our different ‘hits’ including: QUAKES (UK earthquakes in the last 100 days); LOADED (what do rocks sound like when they break), CRUSH (inside an earthquake), and AFTERSHOCK. Inspired by the Rip it Up theme, navigation between different ‘hits’ was via a Virtual Geology Jukebox which was intuitive and playful. The Listening Lab proved to be extremely popular, attracting ca 500 users during the 5 hour event. Visitors of all ages were immediately engaged with the work and fascinated by the underlying science.
QUAKES: Listen on headphones to 100 days of UK Earthquakes.
You are standing under the surface of the Earth, near Lancashire, UK. Size of events is mapped to volume (bigger events are louder). Depth of the event is mapped to depth (high pitches are close to the surface, low notes are much deeper). (Data from the British Geological Survey).