Heavy Metal and the Oratorio for a Million Souls

This paper explores different approaches to the sonification and visualisation of two environmental projects:- “Heavy Metal” is focussed upon the real-time analysis and sonification of the chemical elements in a painting via a camera vision system, whilst “Oratorio for a Million Souls” concerns the behaviour and acoustic properties of live bee colonies manifest in the creation of real-time multi-channel sound compositions and associated sound architectures. Whilst these two projects differ in terms of methodology, aesthetics and technical approach they both share a direct concern with a deep analysis of the underlying environmental structures and perceptual frameworks that emerge in direct ‘live’ encounters — on one hand the discovery of what lies behind the surface of a painted image in terms of chemical and colour structures — and in the case of Oratorio, a compelling immersion into the acoustic environment of Bees.