Echology

• Main Authors: Meghan Deutscher, Sidney Fels, Reynald Hoskinson, Sachiyo Takahashi, Meghan Deutscher Sidney Fels
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: sound spatialization; interactive art; Beluga whale {deutschm; ssfels; reynald; sachiyot} @ ece.ubc.ca; Beluga; Beluga whale; Beluga*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.59.5839; http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/nime/2005/proc/nime2005_274.pdf

INTRODUCTION The playful, graceful motions of Beluga whales swimming in water create a mesmerizing motion space to watch. These highly communicative creatures use a variety of vocalization, physical expressions and physical contact in their navigation, social interaction and survival. Beluga whales have fatty structures on the top of their heads; it is hypothesized that these structures, called melons, act as acoustical lenses for focusing and directing sounds for echolocation. We have created an installation for participants to play with directional sounds initiated by the playful movement of beluga whales in the water. 2. DESCRIPTION We have produced an interactive multimedia installation piece for the Open Media Environment (aka Atrium) at the University of British Columbia. The installation uses Jitter to process a live webcam feed of the Beluga tank at the Vancouver Aquarium [1]. The motion of Beluga whales in the webcam view trigger various whale-based sounds to enter the soun