Weather Player

WeatherPlayer is an online audio sound-art installation which creates generative music from the weather. A hardware sculpture captures light, temperature, wind and water data which is interpreted by sound generating algorithms programmed to reflect the current time of day and environmental conditions. This generative framework allows short term data fluctuations, such as wind speed, to be linked to synthesis parameters, and long term parameters such as light to be linked with compositional structure. The result is a rich sonic landscape with a cyclic form which mirrors the light cycles of day and night. The combination of real-time synthesis and the triggering of sampled spaces results in a self generating ambient music.

The WeatherPlayer is an experiment in sound design and interface, concerned with the connection of real spaces with virtual spaces and by using natural phenomenon, provides a random structural element to algorithmic computer generated composition. WeatherPlayer can be experienced online at http://www.weatherplayer.com with the aid of an audio stream, webcam and a flash application which displays information straight from the WeatherPlayer sensors. Due to the generative nature of the music, the performance period is not limited in length and the listener will never hear the same sound twice. The listener can dip into the performance at any point and therefore takes on the role of an observer who is encouraged to check back on what the WeatherPlayer is doing, and take a bit of time out to listen to the world going round.

WeatherPlayer has so far been exhibited at the Cybersonica International Festival of Sound Art and has undertaken two performances at the University of Brighton and the Garage International Festival of Art, Music and Film in Germany. Currently a permanent place for WeatherPlayer is being sought with a view to a much longer performance in the future.