Telling data stories through sound

When I first came up with the idea for Moth x Human I don’t think I realised quite how much time would be spent staring at spreadsheets before I could actually start making music.

The idea came to me one day at the breakfast table - to create a piece of music that explores declining biodiversity using insect activity. I was soon introduced to the biodiversity scientists at UKCEH who had recently built a solar-powered device for monitoring nocturnal insects.

AMI System

Each AMI system (Automated Monitoring of Insects) is set up to work automatically (no sitting outdoors with a flask and clipboard at midnight!) and features a light for attracting insects, along with high resolution cameras that can capture images of moths and classify them by species using AI. Over several months, they build a good picture of what biodiversity is like in different locations. The results are collected in a spreadsheet giving a timestamp and classification to each moth that lands.

Having looked at months of data from six different UK locations I selected:

1 August 2024 Parsonage Downs, Salisbury

• A protected area and healthy habitat. Some of the best chalk grassland in the UK.

• 80 different moth species over a 4-hour period (midnight – 4am).

• Audio recording from this night is buzzing with insect noise.

 There was heightened activity in the early hours of 1 August, following a humid day at the end of a heatwave. I assume the hot weather had encouraged more moths to emerge from cocoons.

Telling data stories through sound

The Parsonage data was analysed in Excel to spot trends - how many times a certain species appeared and at what points during the night. The prepped data was then fed into a bespoke Max/MSP device and converted into MIDI, with each species of moth assigned a unique sound or note. I gave some of the more prominent sounds I’d created to my ‘showstopper’ moths; species such as the beautiful Elephant Hawk-moth and Burnished Brass.

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And then a leap of faith - what happens when I press play?

Ellie talks through the process of uploading moth data via a bespoke Max/MSP device then assigning sounds via MIDI.

The ‘performance’ captures the ebb and flow of different species’ activity throughout the night. Four hours is condensed into almost 5 minutes (Part I of Moth x Human). At some points the moths create short melodic fragments and these can be heard later in the piece as repeating motifs in the cello and piano.

 As a contrast, the end of the piece uses data from a poor habitat, audibly demonstrating declining biodiversity due to human interference.

1 August 2024 UK Farmland

• Monoculture farm using pesticides

• 19 different moth species over a 4-hour period (midnight – 4am).

• Audio recording from this night is eerily silent.

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 About Moth x Human

Moth x Human is an immersive audio-visual composition which combines cutting edge musical technologies and ecological research to highlight biodiversity through art. The piece will be presented for the first time at the two PRSF New Music Biennial events at the Southbank Centre, London, and in Bradford as part of its UK City of Culture celebrations.

At the heart of Moth X Human is Ellie’s musical response to the collection of sonic night-data from diverse species of moths from UK nature sites. The work, which inspires a sense of the wonder of nature, highlights the importance of a natural world that comes alive after dark.

The piece is written for 2 violins, cello, trombone, piano, synths, electronics … and moths.

For more info visit:

Hear it live

https://ocmevents.org/project/new-music-biennial/

https://www.ceh.ac.uk/solutions/equipment/automated-monitoring-insects-trap

Sound Installation: Echoes

EXTENDED RUN
Moves to High Beach Visitor Centre, Loughton from 16.01.2020 - 01.03.2020

The sound installation runs from 12.11.2019 – 05.01.2020
The View Visitor Centre, Chingford, Epping Forest
(FREE - just turn up!) Open 10am-5pm Tuesdays-Sundays
CDs and posters available to purchase in The View gift shop.

Come and experience my new work Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest as a sound installation in Epping Forest. Just pick up a some headphones and a leaflet from The View Visitor Centre. There’s no correct way to experience this sound installation. You can wander around the museum and stop off at the displays that relate to the tracks, you can take the headphones to the Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge (opposite The View) or, if you’d prefer, go outside and listen to the music on Chingford Plain.

This collection of new compositions is inspired by the human impact on Epping Forest through the centuries: Iron-Age hillforts, WWII bomb craters that are now ponds, and her ancestor Thomas Willingale – a local labourer who helped save the forest during the 19th century enclosure movement.

A mixture of contemporary classical, folk, and electronica, creating a haunting, textural soundworld that explores themes of lost and fragmented memories, lingering traces of the past and the spirit of place. Echoes includes a self-penned folk song, field recordings, and a graphic score based on a map of Iron-Age Loughton Camp.

This project is linked to the Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture season The People’s Forest, curated by Luke Turner and Kirsteen McNish, and will be a sound installation in Epping Forest.

Guest musicians: Thom Ashworth, Jo Quail (MONO, Poppy Ackroyd), Jay Chakravorty (Bryde, Emma McGrath), Fran Foote (Belinda Kempster & Fran Foote, Stick In the Wheel), and members of The Middlesex Yeomanry Concert Band.

Living Symphonies

Recording at Goldsmiths UoL

Living Symphonies is a musical composition and installation that grows in the same way as a forest ecosystem. Each species found in the forest is depicted by a unique set of musical motifs, and for this installation composers James Bulley and Daniel Jones invited me to record parts they had written depicting grass, butterfly and falcon. You can hear it 20- 28 July via a network of speakers hidden in the forest near Chingford Plain.

For more information visit #wfculture

Here’s a video from a similar installation James and Daniel did a few year’s ago.

Living Symphonies is taking place in Epping Forest as part of London National Park City Festival and Waltham Forest Borough of Culture.

It is completely free to visit, and is open from 11am to 8pm, from 20-28 July.

It is located within the Chingford Plain region of the forest, at the below map location. 51°38’25.9″N 0°00’54.7″E

Nearest station is Chingford on the Overground. There are also a number of forest carparks.