How Mars, a neuron ‘talk’ and the Amazon rainforest sound?

“Countdown: Mars Curiosity is going to take off in 3,2, 1…” That is the beginning of one of the sound fictions invented by the participants of the workshop Sounds, science and technology. During this spring more than 300 students will use the European strategies for innovation and creativity in these KiiCS incubators that merge sounds and science.

When the workshop finishes the students yell, cheer and congratulate themselves. Nothing to do with the kids who arrived three hours before and listened in a skeptical attitude how they would recreate the sounds of Mars or the Amazon or the message of a neuron. In two weeks, fifty students between 14 and 18 years old have left their school routine to go to innovate and experiment with sounds, art and science. In less than 3 months will be 300 students who participate in the workshops performed by Sounds of Barcelona artists.

So far, students of Poblenou, Projecte, and XXV Olimpíada Institutes have built their own realities in the workshops “Sound Fictions” organized by the Music Technology Group (MTG) and Scientific Communication Observatory (OCC), both from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF).

Here you can hear the first sounds fictions created by students:

• One day in rain forest (Music students from 4th grade of ESO, Institut 25ª Olimpíada)

How does the Amazon rainforest sound? Deforestation and indigenous rituals come together in this sound fiction. A brief history of how human actions are mixed with the sounds of birds, the rustle of hidden animals and the sound of rain in the jungle.

• Neuronal Landscape (Informatics students from Occupational Cycles, Institut Poblenou)

Not all our decisions are made by our brain. The most immediate or the instinctive ones are decided in a much shorter path. This is the story of a simple reflex that involves vegetables, a knife and communication between two neurons: one sensorial and one motor.

• Mars Cusiosity Landing (Informatic students from Occupational Cycles, Institut Poblenou)

Silence, parachute and thrusters are the three main sounds of this fiction about the arrival of the Mars Curiosity  to the red planet. But once on Mars, everything works as it should?

All the results of these activities are uploaded here, at platform Freesound.org  (an open access repository created by MTG).

This initiative is framed within the European project KiiCS and has the financial support of Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT), and the collaboration of Phonos Foundation and Institut Municipal de Educació de Barcelona (IMEB).


Este blog cuenta con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación