SonifyDSS – generate sounds from a galaxy

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A wonderful birthday gift from Andy! Generate sounds from Digitized Sky Survey data using sonification techniques https://github.com/AstroAndyN/SonifyDSS OutlineSonifyDSS is a python code that using sonification techniques to turn FITS data from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 collected from the NASA SkyView system (https://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov) into sounds. It is focussed on generating sounds for composition or exploring … SonifyDSS – generate sounds from a galaxy

Autonoe – first wave of the quantum tide

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“Quantum Tide” refers to the idea of quantum effects—like particles behaving in strange, wave-like ways—shaping and influencing a space or system, similar to how tides on Earth are influenced by the moon’s gravity, but on a much smaller, atomic scale. Stylistically, this is a bit of return to my Jean-Michel Jarre origins infused with a … Autonoe – first wave of the quantum tide

2023 releases

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We start the year with eight pieces released (and, in some cases, re-released) widely across Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer, Soundcloud, and dozens of others. If you would like to download (for free, or pay-what-you-want) please use this Bandcamp page. If you just want to get the whole album now, use this. Listen here

Adventures in acoustic cosmology

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ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PRESS RELEASE Adventures in acoustic cosmology RAS PR 17/30 (NAM 13) 3rd July 2017 A project that explores whether there is a musical equivalent to the curvature of spacetime will be presented on Thursday 6th July by Gavin Starks at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull. Starks, who has … Adventures in acoustic cosmology

Listen to the radio-cube of the Antennae Galaxies

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Below is the optical image of the “Antennae Galaxies” colliding, as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Overlaid below is a radio-image taken by ALMA. In the ‘image’ in this case, each pixel is actually represents a spectrum of frequencies across the electromagnetic radio spectrum: the ‘image’ is actually a data-cube. We have transformed this data-cube in … Listen to the radio-cube of the Antennae Galaxies

Earthsounds

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Interesting to compare: the sound of electromagnetic measurements of Earth transformed directly into sound, and then slowed down Original: https://www.nasa.gov/mp3/687631main_687014main_emfisis_chorus_1.mp3 Slowed down: Compare with this excerpt of a transitional piece I wrote when I was 19yo (I was moving from traditional tone/rhythm-based music to electronic).

Evolving language

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Evolving thoughts on the language of music, I wonder if our reductionist adoption of the language of physics (cf. Wishart On Sonic Art) should extend to adopt the language of cosmology and quantum mechanics?

Binary Dust at ISEA 2012

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Here’s a copy of the presentation I gave at ISEA 2012. Acoustic Cosmology ISEA 2012 from Gavin Starks

Heavenly Discourses – Acoustic Cosmology presentation

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Here’s a copy of the presentation I gave at Heavenly Discourses. I’ll post the video when I get it. Acoustic Cosmology :: Heavenly Discourses 2011-11 from Gavin Starks View more presentations from Gavin Starks

Listen to the colliding “Antennae Galaxies”

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Cross posting between my two blogs (not sure what the best approach is for this kind of thing, which is quite apt given the collision-nature of the content), but here’s a sneak preview of some of the work I’ll be presenting on Sunday…

The utterance of a cosmological model?

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“On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human in outer space and the first to orbit the Earth. 2011 sees the fiftieth anniversary of that event…” I am speaking at Heavenly Discourses on Sunday 16th October 16:45 – 18:00. PANEL: Music I’ll be presenting new work (including sounds and pictures derived from ALMA) … The utterance of a cosmological model?

Another image

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experimenting with the copper printout of the name…

Binary Dust, “Absorptance” – now live

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So, “roughly monthly” didn’t quite happen… mostly work taking precedent, and partly getting a photo to go with it. Absorptance Composed nine years after Tempest, Absorptance was the first experiment in pulling together the textural soundscape aesthetic with more melodic and rhythmic style of some of my earlier pieces. You can listen here, and if … Binary Dust, “Absorptance” – now live

Binary Dust, “Tempest” – now live

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Hello, Well, here we go – this has been a while coming… 17 years or thereabouts. Tempest, originally composed in 1993, is the first release of “Binary Dust”, a series of works that I’ve developed since then, and am continuing to develop. Very much a slow-bake project, I’ll be releasing new tracks (roughly) monthly, for … Binary Dust, “Tempest” – now live

Latvia performance

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A reclaimed 32m Radio Telescope in the middle of the Lativan forests… brought to life over the past 10 years as the only radio telescope in the world that is dedicated to both science and art. ACOUSTIC SPACE: RT32 Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the conversion of the RT32 telescope at VIRAC, Riga & Irbene, … Latvia performance