Sound Installation | Artistic Research Project
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Between Whale Song and Noise Pollution is an immersive sound installation that uses sound as its central medium to explore the overlapping, interference, and transformation between whale vocalisations and human-generated noise within the same oceanic environment. Created as part of the artist’s graduation project at Goldsmiths, University of London, the work draws from ecoacoustics and integrates real marine datasets—including oceanic CO₂ concentration, sea temperature variation, and global whale stranding records. Through sonification mapping, these environmental shifts are translated into sound: as CO₂ levels rise, distortion deepens; as temperatures increase, overall loudness intensifies; and as whale populations decline, the reverb becomes hollower and lingering, symbolising the ocean’s growing imbalance and silence.
The spatial design features two distinct sound fields. At the centre, a dodecahedral omnidirectional speaker produces the first sound space, representing inescapable human noise—dense, fixed, and directionless. Surrounding it, a second sound field built with a 5.1 surround system projects moving whale calls and fluid oceanic sounds, forming a sonic narrative that extends “from the centre outward.” As audiences move through the space, they experience two contrasting ecological realities: the inner field of pressure and disturbance, and the outer layer of natural resonance that still endures. This contrast creates a form of ecological co-listening, positioning the listener between destruction and recovery.
The work combines 5.1 spatial audio and omnidirectional diffusion with synthesised compositions, using granular synthesis, time-stretching, and extended reverb to transition from concrete sound sources to abstract soundscapes. Sound here is not merely material—it becomes a mode of ecological reflection, a way of sensing and understanding the changing relationship between humans and the more-than-human world. Through this journey woven from whale song and noise pollution, the listener is both enveloped and implicated, invited to imagine what coexistence might
sound like.
The composition unfolds in two movements:
Movement I – Ascent: focuses on the whales’ rise from the deep sea toward noise-saturated coastal zones. Industrial and mechanical sounds gradually engulf the environment—accelerated bubbles, thickened low frequencies, and compressed spatial depth evoke a sense of suffocation and entrapment. This section is anchored by the central omnidirectional speaker, immersing the audience in an unavoidable sonic pressure field, where escape is impossible and listening becomes confrontation.
Movement II – Descent: embodies return and restoration. The sound slowly expands into deep, continuous pads resembling the resonance of the ocean floor. Brass-like pads, reminiscent of ship horns, are softened and stretched; engine drones are transformed into meditative tones; sonar pulses are processed through granular synthesis and delays to become melodic textures. This second sound space focuses on spatial clarity and movement—the surround field lets sounds flow around the audience like whales gliding through water, offering a renewed acoustic experience of a living sea.
