Dawn Chorus

Recording nature has been done since the beginning of communication, we've needed this information recorded some type of place. In this design study I've attempted to illustrate and abstract the "dawn chorus" and the "evening chorus" of birds in my local area.

Critical Question

*Using Nature Journaling as a catalyst to create, how might we abstract the "Dawn Chorus"?

Design Process

I've been a nature photographer for about 3 years, and in order to catalogue new insights in the field I've taken up Nature Journaling during fleeting moments of quiet. Nature Journaling has opened my eyes to asking questions about the nature world and how we fit into this grand design. I wanted to look at bird song as a visual representation of place. This project started as a love letter to Giogia Lupi's "Dear Data" and over time morphed into something I cherish.

Designing a Visual Language

Taking inspiration from Nature Journaling Techniques from the Audabon Society I encountered a method for catagorizing and recording bird song visually. From this I extrapolated a visual language based on call frequency, call length, and loudness based on location. Drawing from my musical background it was easy to see how we could add musical symbols to the "score".

Below you can see John Muirs Laws illustrating this principal:

Auditory Sight and Seeing

With birding and spatial audio, I developed a visual language to catagorize and catalogue bird numbers and estimations of size that fit the visual pattern. By picking apart observations at a granular scale during an "exposure" we can give users a visual sense of where and when birds come into the picture to paint a landscape. Birds can be counted through observation, and tracked to their behavior patterns based on location spotted. While it is not an "accurate" portrayal, and you end up missing visual data, this visual system could be supportive of a robust information system as a catalogue (while also catering to birds not seen). The intent is to catalogue the data provided, but not take a picture.

Data Management and Sound Forms

Bird Song as a medium is difficult to abstract because of its variance in sound texture and call length. In order to present a consistent aesthetic I used this paper(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002Natur.417..351B/abstract) as a metric to help reel in expectations of what an abstracted sound could look like. By diffrientiating bird song by length and by type (and by including a way to catagorize some birds as "unknown") this helped me create and define a color + texture pallette.

Sound and Textures.

Visual Impact

Initially I looked at the abstraction of birdsong similar to reading sheet music. Tying this together visually with observations I noticed that many bird songs operate in the same frequency range. To get around this challenge I used a visual overlay to group different bird songs together, reducing complexity and increasing readability. By linking several of the same "songs" together on the weave, we could isolate and observe patterns in different birds and calls over time.

By creating a way to illustrate time and direction as well as "intrusive songs" the goal was to create a sensory experience relative to timescale, allowing each observation to have its own "voice" musically. In subsequent exposures I wanted to create a way to identify sounds visually first by creating iconographs that correspond to the 3 taxa I've mapped sound into, this taxa was later simplified by shape instead of iconographs making the reading and translation process easier.

Functional vs Expressive

"Form following function" was the result of multiple iterations and studies of placement and scale. More specifically I wanted to look at how displaying the data aesthetically could lead to a better product.The hardest part here was finding a visual that showed cohesion and was bold enough to stand on its own. As I began to diverge from the initial idea of data formation, I explored other ideas that drew on pattern, repetition and more subtle encoding.

This is how the functional form is read.

Expressing sound as a map was the result of multiple iterations and studies of readability and cohesion. More specifically I wanted to look at how displaying the data differently affected the perception of the piece. The hardest part was keeping a balance between readability and aesthetics, as the more "human" the data got, the more it limited readability. For this exploration I wanted to focus on the material of the scarf, exploring radial symmetry, sound cataloging and deep encoding of data.

This is how the expressive form is read.

The map time and date was inspired by sundial clocks after a visit to a garden during the summer. Abstracting the dates and times of sunset and sunrise was a fun excersice in open wondering, and modifying for visual clarity after testing with friends.

Capital Calls and Score System

The final product looked at each call as an individual bird signature, repeating a "capital call" for a distinct bird. Using scale and a grid system to drive the interaction. As the bird signature is "called" the song is logged in a column. Intrusive songs (Songs that are man made) are logged as well and compressed into the column. This column of bird + non bird songs is then repeated radially. Rough estimates of count are tracked using the eye system as well as a color chart to track location type and size using the a custom sizing guide.

The system to the left of the eye icon illustrates the number of birds as a visual barometer using rough estimates and dot system notation. To minimize information overhead and to make the interaction cheifly about the picture it paints we've omitted bird type from the indicators, instead the dot system takes care of where "geographically speaking" the bird was seen. I found this added greater visual interest over all, while handily also reducing visual clutter. Below you can see a flat lay of the scarves!∎

Final Product

Final Formalist Result

Final Expressive Result