Team Members: Maike Prewett and Candy Bi
Candy and I started by researching and collecting data on different animal measurements, and figuring out ways to represent these measurements in an urban landscape. Some examples of this were:
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- A North Atlantic right whale’s swimming speed (5-6 mph) which is roughly walking speed
- the speed of oncoming cars in a residential street (25-30 mph), which is roughly the same speed as a shortfin mako’s average swimming speed (with bursts up to 46 mph); a mako shark will be slightly shorter than a mini Cooper
- the size of a street bike (a spiny dogfish will be slightly shorter and a leatherback sea turtle 1-2 feet longer)
- if the listener goes to the 7th floor of a building, they will be able to gauge the depth from the surface to the bottom of the Nearshore Zone (72 feet) and be able to view how far the Nearshore Zone extends to (about 8 miles from shore; someone on the 7th floor will be able to see about 10 miles)
- if the listener goes to the 40th floor of a building, they will be able to visualize the depth of the continental shelf
We used the following audio projects, documentaries, conservation projects, and sound libraries as inspiration:
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- Her Long Black Hair, Janet Cardiff
- BBC Earth, Planet Earth
- Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database
- BlueYork
- Ocean Conservation Research sound library
After collecting this information, we had to choose a narrative scope and focus for our interactive sound walk. Candy and I decided to focus our scope on a single animal, the North Atlantic right whale (which is endangered). So far, we have begun writing chunks of script using Janet Cardiff’s style of narration. Some examples are:
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- A right whale is about fifty feet long. That’s as long as a semi-trailer, or the length of twenty average-sized footsteps. Let’s walk together – ready? One…two…three…four…
- A right whale can dive to depths up to 1,000 feet, which is roughly the height of some of the tallest skyscrapers in New York. Imagine you’re deep in the ocean, surrounded by blue water. You look up and see the sunlight glinting on the surface, just above the tallest skyscrapers.
- Currently, there are no more than 400 or 450 surviving right whales. Laying end to end and side by side, these giant mammals would not even fill up a city block.
- Hold your breath for as long as you can…
This week, we are looking to record a demo, edit it in post-production, and user test it next week.