Talking at TED
We’re pleased to share our talk from TEDxBerlin, where we participated in the event themed “Music Is Unstoppable.” Our talk, titled “Symphony of our World,” dives into our specific projects, focusing on emotive sonification to give an emotional perspective on the meaning of data and tell compelling stories. Following our performance at the 40th anniversary of TEDTalk in Vancouver, we were invited to bring our insights to Berlin. While the video from our Vancouver performance will be published at the end of summer, we hope you enjoy this presentation from Berlin.
Designing Three Pavilions
We’re excited to announce our involvement in the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, where we’ll be creating the sound scenography for three pavilions. It feels rewarding to see how sound — and by extension, our work — is recognized as a vital component of a holistic experience that moves people and leaves a lasting impression.
Myriad. Where we connect.
Enjoy the trailer to the exhibition of this cross-media installation that tells the stories of animal migrations and their challenges in the Anthropocene era.
The installation is divided into four chapters, each narrating the tale of different animals species residing in Water, Air, and Land, and the profound impact of the Anthropocene on their lives. With each chapter the soundscape undergoes a transformation, adapting its characteristics to reflect the element being portrayed.
Designing a Weather Machine
HYDROSFEER is an immersive sound and kinetic installation that captures the dynamic energy and unpredictability of a thunderstorm, unfolding in three distinct stages: the building phase, the mature phase, and the dissipating phase. This piece explores the natural progression of a storm, simulating its lifecycle within a controlled environment.
At the heart of HYDROSFEER is a sophisticated sound engine, we meticulously designed for the artist Boris Acket. The engine utilizes white noise as its primary sound source to recreate the intricate sounds associated with each phase of a thunderstorm. This auditory experience is further enhanced by a kinetic sculpture, which introduces a compelling visual element to the installation. The sculpture, composed of semi-transparent fabric, is manipulated by software-controlled winches to create wave-like patterns that mirror the turbulence and fluidity of a storm.
The system is intentionally configured to be beyond the artist’s control, ensuring that each storm passing through the space is a unique and unpredictable event. The interaction between the soundscape and the kinetic sculpture immerses the audience in the visceral sensation of a storm, blending auditory and visual elements to convey the raw power of nature.
HYDROSFEER was prominently featured at Dark Rooms Berlin, hosted at the iconic Kühlhaus Berlin. This exhibition provided an ideal setting for the work, allowing audiences to experience the unpredictable beauty of a thunderstorm within an urban environment.
Upcoming Project
Attracting around 3 million visitors annually, the Festival of Lights is one of Berlin’s most anticipated events. From October 4th onwards, the city’s landmarks and buildings will illuminate daily from 7 PM to 11 PM, transforming Berlin into a radiant canvas of light and art. This year, in addition to the central attractions, we are excited to present a sound and light installation at a yet-to-be-disclosed location.
Stay updated by following us on Instagram and LinkedIn for the latest news and sneak peeks. Join us at the Festival of Lights 2024!
#berlinfestivaloflights
Unlock the Symphony of Information
Imagine listening to the subtle shifts in whale song as an indication of changing ocean temperatures. As the melodies rise and fall, you intuitively grasp the warming trends of the sea, feeling the urgency and impact in a way a graph could never convey. This is the magic of sonification—transforming cold, hard data into an immersive auditory experience that makes complex information both comprehensible and emotionally resonant. By making complex datasets audible, sonification imbues data with emotional meaning, allowing listeners to connect with the information on a deeper level.
Sonification's ability to turn data into meaningful soundscapes can be applied in various contexts, from scientific research to public awareness campaigns. This dual potential—analytical and emotional—highlights the versatility and impact of sonification.
TUNING INTO DATA.
Sonification aids scientific analysis by providing an additional sensory modality for researchers, helping to identify patterns and trends that might otherwise go unnoticed. For instance, in seismology, researchers use sonification to detect earthquake tremors by converting seismic data into sound, allowing for quicker pattern recognition (source, source). This form of analytical sonification enhances data interpretation and allows scientists to make critical observations efficiently. While AI and neural networks can now detect patterns in large datasets, making this type of analytical sonification less critical, the communicative power of sonification remains unmatched in evoking emotional responses.
In contrast, emotional sonification seeks to create a personal connection with the data, making abstract information feel immediate and real.
A compelling example is NASA's sonification of astronomical data. By translating data from black holes and galaxies into sound, NASA has created experiences that allow us to "hear" the universe. As Sarah Kane explained at the January 2023 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, “Astronomy is a leading field in sonification, but there’s no reason that work couldn’t be generalized” (source). These auditory representations help both scientists and the public better understand cosmic phenomena while also evoking a sense of wonder and awe (source, source). However, while NASA’s sonifications are designed to communicate scientific data accurately and engagingly, they can be further expanded artistically to explore deeper emotional responses.
MUSICAL TECHNIQUES IN SONIFICATION
The “For Seasons” project exemplifies how sonification can transcend traditional scientific communication by transforming data into musical compositions that deeply resonate with audiences on an emotional level. Numerous data visualizations have been created to highlight the urgency of climate change action. Yet, despite their creative and beautifully designed charts and graphs, they rely on visual interpretation and still require an analytical thought process. In contrast, music directly engages our emotions without the need for an additional cognitive step. In the “For Seasons” project, temperature anomalies were translated into variations in harmonic shifts that could be immediately felt. Additionally, the decline in bird and insect populations was represented with fewer notes in the musical motifs, making the data both audible and emotionally impactful. This approach demonstrates how sonification can be used to communicate messages and abstract information by weaving data into the experience and its dramaturgy, creating a richer and more engaging atmosphere.
Sonification can transform data into immersive auditory experiences through various creative techniques. Parameter mapping sonification is a sophisticated method that uses algorithms to generate complex soundscapes reflecting data nuances. This technique was employed in the “For Seasons” project, where temperature anomalies, among other parameters, were translated into variations in harmonic shifts, making the data both audible and emotionally resonant.
COMMUNICATING THROUGH SOUND
Sonification elicits emotional responses, which gives it significant potential in communicating complex topics effectively and reaching a wider audience. By turning abstract theoretical concepts into tangible auditory experiences, sonification can make difficult information more accessible and engaging.
Public awareness campaigns can use sonification to highlight pressing issues, making them more immediate and compelling to the public. By turning numbers into sounds, sonification offers a sensory experience that is both intuitive and emotionally engaging. As the field evolves, it holds the promise of transforming how we understand and interact with data, offering new ways to tell stories, raise awareness, and inspire action.
In educational settings, sonification can turn abstract equations into engaging auditory experiences, helping students grasp difficult concepts (source). By making complex scientific concepts more accessible, sonification not only educates but also inspires action and awareness.
„When people of similar frequencies come together, output is not a simple sum of individual work, but exponential. Output at this stage is beyond any logical limit.“
- Ravindra Shulka, A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life -
Resonance as a principle has been the driving force behind our studio since its beginnings, both in the practical and ideological sense; We thrive on finding a shared wavelength within our team and beyond, resonating with captivating topics or specific tools. It's what ignites our passion and fuels our curiosity every single day.
The past years, our work created on this shared wavelength has proven its ability to reach far, and find resonance in others: be it our audiences or partners. We believe that projects born from and shaped with resonance will always strike a chord (pun intended) and leave a profound, lasting emotional impact.
This season, our focus has revolved around another form of resonance - the connection between humans and nature. Sound serves as a great tool, highlighting the interconnection and the mutual influence between the two. It allows us to sense processes that remain hidden from our eyes and enables us to uncover fresh perspectives.
Read below to find out more about our latest projects and upcoming news!
We are really excited to return to the worldexpo in 2025 after having made great experiences in creating the sound scenography for the Luxembourg, and the Sustainability Pavilion in 2021! More details coming soon!
Listening to the invisible
Singing Soil is a sound and light installation created for the Schemerlicht open-air festival at the Netherlands, which aims to nurture post-anthropocene thinking every year. Our piece immerses visitors in the rich, yet invisible world that dwells under our feet, and draws attention to the necessity of a harmonious coexistence with other life forms.
There is a whole universe in the soil, hiding a high-performance network of microorganisms. It is an advanced civilisation, whose well-being is crucial for our planet. That is why regenerative agricultures, like the Bodemzicht farm work to grow living soil, capture CO2 and increase biodiversity. We collaborated with them to bring the proof of this hidden vitality to our level of perception, by recording the soil life with a special underground microphone. We were surprised ourselves, how much there is to listen to in this seemingly lifeless habitat.
The final installation comprises the multi-channel soil soundscapes and multiple Singing Bowl Light Sculptures, representing collaboration between nature and human.The singing bowls are controlled by a complex stochastic system, which in turn, affects the soil recordings: In an equilibrium, the underground soundscape and the human-made sounds enrich each other. Yet too much human interference easily out voices nature and isolates us from engaging with other beings. Singing Soil aims to help us realize how little we truly perceive about our world; by actively listening, we can rebuild these connections and enhance our understanding.
Our next exhibition is very near.
After the successful exhibition series "Himmel unter Berlin", the creators present the next extraordinary series Dark Rooms Vertical. We are excited to be part of another very special and unique exhibition.This exhibition series takes place in the dark towers of Berlin, where visitors can experience light and sound installations in an old automobile factory from 1917. The exhibition aims to create a contrast between the pulsating metropolis and the darkness that sharpens the senses. The exact location is secret and will be revealed to the guests only 48 hours before their visit.
You can find more information and buy tickets here: thedarkrooms.de
At this year's KIKK festival, we shared our work on sound and how it has inspired others to think differently.
The auditorium seating was highlighted blue, with people's faces slightly accentuated by computer screen light. When one looked towards the direction of the stage, the spotlight was on Felipe Sanchez Luna, our Managing and Creative Director – for those who don't know him yet – who was invited to speak at this year's KIKK festival on October 27th.
A talk that stood out was by award-winning Executive Creative Director Carl Addy, with his ground-breaking visuals and immersive experiences. Work, titled Samare stationnaire, by Vivien Roubaud had aeronautics specialists comparing it to an autogyro – a small aircraft with a horizontal propeller that keeps the device in the air, but that doesn't move forward. Through careful symmetrical geometry, the samara hovers in the air. It was a masterful, memorable piece. From our perspective, you can read more about the festival here – and don't forget to subscribe on LinkedIn for an in-depth look into the sounds of KLING KLANG KLONG.
At the klongs studio, we have just launched our new website. What a journey it has been, with teamwork not only from us – we collaborated with a creative agency HENKELHIEDL in Berlin to accomplish this. Uwe Viehmann and Markus Lohmann,from HENKELHIEDL, shared some thoughts on how this process came together, and we are happy to share them with you! It all started when Marcus saw the Event Horizon installation. "I like the simplicity of the light installation, the dark room and the matching sounds," he says, and this was the inspiration for the redesign.
You can see the immersive flows integrated into the design, highlighting how we intertwined thought, music and design into every aspect of our projects. "I played around with the content before starting the redesign and included the vision of the website by playing with a certain style or art piece in my mind – or even music," Marcus explains.
He says that he always looks for a vision when starting the design process. "Sometimes I try to find some words which describe an image," he explains. This style that was envisioned came to life on our website. We included stylistic aspects, and by analysing the information architecture, we ensured that our content was presented in a way that was true to our work. But, like all great visions that are met, there were a few challenges. Uwe says that the main challenge was to focus on one of the many ideas on how to translate the power of sound without focusing too much on sound as a default "because this is dangerous in the web – in other words, browsers and search engines punish websites when playing sound as a default," he explains.
We were really happy to hear that the team at HENKELHIEDL thought our previous website was already very good – but we agreed that it needed a little more depth. What can we say when embarking on such a project but listen to the experts! Uwe suggests hiring an expert is essential to take an outside-in perspective (aka from customers or users) and avoid taking the supposedly politically motivated inside view as the supposedly objective truth. "Remember to take the next step without forgetting the past – aka the content" and ensure you create the vision this way.
Ensuring that HENKELHIEDL works with their clients rather than for them. The creative agency notes design as part of their DNA; the canvas is the digital world. People usually come to a creative agency seeking a unique idea or because they don't have the digital knowledge or accessibility to create the idea they want.
Every project can come with its challenges because, as Uwe says, "every project is different", and while clients might not want to create standardized alternatives, it's important to "never rely on the steps from another, but create your own dance for this endeavour," Uwe adds.
"It's very cool to work with people who have the same passion for their work as I do for mine," says Marcus. It was inspiring for this team to come together – there was definitely mutual respect from both sides for the projects we embarked on, including this one.
The best part of the website are the videos in the background of the project detail page that go black and white when you mute the video. You can check them out here.
Our biggest lesson was to understand how immersive and powerful soundscapes can be, a moving image is only half as powerful. In the words of Uwe, "if you want the full experience for your project, hire the Klongs!"
300 years of classical music met our compositions based on climate data at the Konzerthaus Berlin in November.
In Listening to Climate Change the professional musicians of the future, the Youth Orchestra Berlin performed a concert to raise awareness for a more ecological tomorrow. The repertoire of the concert included five classical pieces written between 1737 and 2008 with five pieces written and produced by us. Through the mixed concert program a timeline emerged, where our pieces musically represented climate change.We are grateful to Landesmusikrat Berlin for their openness and the opportunity to try out new ideas. For the third piece of the concert we tried a spatialisation technique for orchestra and audience for the first time, in which we turned the cellphones of the audience into individual speakers. Based on where they were seated, the audience was assigned one of the 12 individual voices of the composition and became an integral part of the piece. We were very impressed by the potential of the approach not only because it was a fun way to involve the audience but also made use of the whole spatial capacity of the concert hall.
Chasing Waterfalls premiered this fall at the Semperoper and then had its Asian premiere at Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival. We co-composed the opera with Angus Lee for 6 human singers and for the first time in the history of the genre, for one singing voice synthesis system.
The opera, developed by phase7's artistic director Sven Sören Beyer, embarks on a music-theatrical investigation on the impact that artificial intelligence has on our human, social and creative existence. Apart from using several neural networks in our compositional process we also created an artificial intelligence pipeline, whose output became a character of the opera on its own account.
With the technical help of T-System MMS the audience was able to hear lines composed by the AI without any human intervention. The 5th scene of Chasing Waterfalls was dedicated entirely to this character, who took the stage and reflected on its own existence. To help the future's AI Operas, our colleagues at T-Systems MMS decided to share their code which we whole heartedly support! Until those future projects roll around, listen to Scene 5 to see what we could do with the technology available today!
If we know so little about the human mind, what exactly are we trying to replicate with AI? CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY is a mixed reality installation that invites visitors to have a thought-provoking encounter with Artificial Intelligence, guided by a virtual host inspired and built on the digital traces of renowned linguist Noam Chomsky. This interactive, multi-user, playful and collaborative experience allows users to examine the promises and pitfalls of AI in a fun and engaging way, while posing the questions of what we’re hoping to achieve, to recreate and at what cost. Since all of these topics are very close to our heart, creating immersive composition and interactive sound design for the piece was a real passion project. The piece debuted this November in Berlin and will soon go on a world tour.
