Our MUTENAGE project at AGU Fall Meeting 2017
Our MUTENAGE project – MUsical Tools for ENhancing the Awareness of Global Emergencies – will be presented next December at AGU Fall Meeting 2017 in New Orleans, the largest and preeminent Earth and space science conference in the world (Music and the Geosciences Panel). It will address the following issues:
What if the sound extrapolated from the Earth, using a codified methodology, would raise emotions in accordance with the environmental critical issues of a particular site? Antonio Menghini (geophysicist expert of the TEM Method) and Stefano Pontani (a musician) have codified a procedure that transforms geophysical data (transient electromagnetic) into musical notes. Now it is possible to compose musical tracks describing faithfully the risk and geological issues related to different environmental scenarios: 1) Pollution of aquifers; 2) Seawater intrusion along the coastlines; 3) Seismic risk; 4) Drought; 5) Permafrost melting. For each of these environmental emergencies, the TEM method (Time Domain Electromagnetics) shows an excellent diagnostic feature, so that the technical-scientific community widely employs it since many year. In fact, the variations of the recorded signal (voltage) reflect the modifications induced on the Earth system. Associating well defined musical “footprints” to these geophysical variations, through the sonification process, we have an extraordinary didactic-popular tool, able to make the impact of climatic-environmental changes easily understandable to the common people and to students of every age and grade. We will present some examples, one being the musical effect of seawater intrusion, that is well marked by the progressive increase of the pitches, when approaching the coastline. Other interesting examples come from the sonification of the TEM data acquired on seismic area especially highlighting the effect of seismic wave amplification associated to earthquakes. Besides being a new source of inspiration for musicians, the MUTENAGE Project is intended for delivering didactic tools, for scientific museums and schools, and a series of EM concerts, that will be located in different countries, for each of the above mentioned environmental issues.