They say in space no one can hear you scream; but what sounds can you hear when travelling through the stars? In a fascinating collaboration of art and science, the Sunconscious album allows listeners to experience the sounds they might hear on a journey to the sun.
Co-created by Professor Kim Cunio, a composer from the Australian National University (ANU), Diana Scarborough, a UK-based multimedia artist, and Dr Nigel Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Sunconscious is the third collaboration by the trio of cross-disciplinary experts as part of the Sounds of Space project.
“This album conveys the sheer scale of our sun and how completely it permeates our lives,” Professor Cunio said.
The album draws on data that is normally used to investigate space weather storms, solar wind turbulence and the interior of the sun through collaboration with some of the biggest names in deep space technology. The electromagnetic data is captured by a NASA spacecraft and the VLF receiver at the BAS Hailey VI Research Station located in Antarctica.
“After this data was converted into sound waves audible to humans, the result was “a truly beautiful, eerie, and, at times, weird cacophony,” Professor Cunio said.
The album features some of the noises captured including the first sunrise of the Southern Hemisphere’s spring as well as the last sunset of its summer. Professor Cunio created harmonies to accompany the song with a 1,000-year-old string instrument, the theremin, an electronic keyboard, and his own chants into a well.
Such an eclectic and unique album required artwork that captured the essence of science and music, which is where Ms Scarborough came in. Using the rich sounds of the noises as curated by Dr Meredith and the music created by Professor Cunio, the artist had the freedom to create her vision of sounds of the sun.
“Inspired by the sublime nature of the sun, I used abstract painting techniques and the simplest elements of colour and flow combined with digital design, to evoke the essence of our album,” Ms Scarborough said.
Listen to the sounds of space for free in Sunconscious; soundsofspaceproject.bandcamp.com
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