The data encrypted in the migration patterns of beluga whales indicate the dependence of biological species on a variety of external factors, including natural disasters, human actions and technologies. Training of technological agents can help preserve this data and present it as an aesthetic experience. The LSTM recurrent neural network is trained on data of the movement of beluga whales in coastal waters of Alaska from 1979 to 2010 and generates coordinates of alternative migration routes for beluga whales, which becoming the basis for animation. Data on the depth and temperature of the water at the current point are reflected in the sound of the work through parametric sonification of the synthesized sound and audio recordings of beluga whale communication using another neural network - a multilayer perceptron.
ACADEMIC ADVISOR:
Sergey Kostyrko
CONSULTANT:
Maria Kuptsova
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The audio-visual installation is a thesis project within the framework of the master's thesis for the program
Digital Art —Da. at FEFU, 2021.
The project seeks to convey ideas about the fragility and vulnerability of nature, as well as about human responsibility for the changes taking place in the world. The interpretation of biological data through aesthetic images communicates this inside the human system of reflection, through an intuitive artistic language, transforming the intangible patterns of biological agents into visual and auditory ways of experiencing this information.
Technological agents, learning from biological agents, cease to be seen as a lifeless objects and are endowed with the characteristics of biological agents and organicity. Technologies that have historically been opposed to living nature starting to act as equal within the framework of the project.
The project calls for a change in the attitude to technology as a category of human instrument of subordination or gaining benefit, and to look at it as a way to maintain the balance of a complex system in which people, nature and technology are involved.


Source dataset
Documentation of installation


Patch in TouchDesigner





Alaska's landscape change