SONECO

LITERATURE & MEDIA BACKGROUND

     Environmental awareness has been fundamental in supporting human evolution since our earliest migrations over 60,000 years ago. It once described the initial survival tactics utilized by the first tribes. These tactics included learning the patterns of predators and prey, testing flora and fauna's edibility, and even developing ways of communicating that knowledge. Awareness of the natural environment required the use of both learned behaviors and the body’s senses for survival. The early humans were quick in their emergence of hunting tools, fire, and agricultural technologies to continuously increase their endurance to the environment during their migrations until they eventually felt the status of control over nature.[1] We can wonder: has Earth similarly been adapting for its own survival? Reconnecting with the planet as it exists could be a forefront solution in deepening our understanding of the human impact and the necessity for sustaining our habitat.

BIOPHILIA & THING-IFICATION

     There is an instinctive love of life in humans, referred to as Biophilia, that has not historically been fostered to the degree required to cultivate full respect for all other organisms. Without understanding lives beyond those that are human, value becomes assigned based solely on usefulness even in moments of self-reflection.[2] This Western practice of worth equals productivity becomes harmful across all relationships and can be described as one of the root issues in systemic labor, wealth, and identity divisions.

     Working to dismantle the constructs of value placing can be best emphasized with the idea of thing-ification. To treat something or someone as if it lacks agency is to objectify. Instead, ideating the politics and cares of something or someone can increase its thing status, where it has value in the system in which it exists. To create and foster this relationship has the potential to create interest. For example, imagining what a plant may care or think about could help a human understand, empathize, and value the plant.[3] The relationships between humans and nonhumans making up the environment have space for positive, mutually beneficial growth.

     Earth's biodiversity is one of the planet's most beneficial resources. Regrettably, the maximum potential of utilizing that diversity is far from met. This is particularly true for traditional agriculture where only a minuscule percentage of all available edible plants are used as common crops. Due to this human hyperfocus on limited specific uses of organisms, life forms are overused to the point of causing endangered species and full extinctions, whether it be directly from the hunt of the organism itself or indirectly through the destruction of ecological systems and habitats. 23 species were removed from the Endangered Species Act by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2021 “because they’ve probably gone extinct, and you can’t keep protecting what’s already gone.”[4] Beyond the results of species extinctions and habitat destruction, the environmental changes on the planet have been increasingly evident. Climate change can be as obvious as the critical wildfire zones and quickly receding glaciers, or even invisible factors such as the exponential spread of diseases and harmful air quality. These obvious features have been accelerated during the Anthropocene Epoch. While frequently dismissed by discussion of previous mass extinctions in Earth’s history, human impact has proven more harmful in an intensely short interval of time.[5]

     In attempting to reverse the negative destruction that human society has caused to ecosystems in their desire to conquer nature, the focus remains overly centralized on one organism. Conservation efforts are meant to increase personal interest for an individual rather than the more classically pushed narrative where decisions are made based on the impacts that they will have on future generations. By leaning into the need for inwardness to foster biophilia, human beings will better understand the value of other organisms and themselves beyond a specific usefulness. The outcome of SonEco aims to foster the practice of environmental awareness on a broader scale, expanding from surviving the environment to protection and appreciation of the environment as well. Survival of the individual will be impractical if the Earth does not survive first.

ECOFEMINISM

     In further exploring ways in which organisms are decent in accordance with their particular use and even controlled, the patriarchal system becomes another example. It emphasizes the negative effects of objectification where another's agency is infringed upon. Earth and its ecological biodiversity have been treated as lower-value objects due to power dynamics similar to those inflicted on females. This is because the Western patriarchal system has long been characterized by a hierarchical structure that puts primarily white men in positions of authority and power over those deemed weaker and inferior, such as women and the environment. The attitude of control is perpetuated in the behaviors in which the environment is regarded as something to be exploited, rather than something to be respected and preserved.[6]

     Systemic patriarchal barriers also extend into reproductive rights in females of all species resulting in power over the population control practices and food production.[7] Beyond female fertility’s vitality in increasing the production of animal meat and flowering plants as a food source is the traditional indigenous human female expertise in understanding agricultural biodiversity for medicinal herbs and sustainable edible crops. This expertise was an opportunity for females to connect intimately with the biosphere by encouraging a deeper understanding of it.[8] Then, in urban development it is still most often that male trees are favored in promoting community interaction with the environment leading to higher levels of pollen production and a lack of species diversity.[9]

     By using an ecofeminist lens to understand environmental consciousness, it realigns the survival of self as a practice more similar to those previously discussed in early human migration. However, the environment is not always full of new wildlife experiences but rather a more frequently present predator now sustained by the patriarchal system. Historically, a debriefing of what happened throughout the day needed to be shared to ensure the safety of all, known as a Meadow Report. Now, consistently checking your surroundings for danger has become a skill and part of the instinct of being environmentally aware. This is especially true for those who are not in immediate systemic power. This environmental awareness skill is more commonly practiced in today's society while in urban environments to protect against other human intrusions than in a more remote habitat for large animals. An updated version of a Meadow Report would likely include judgments of character and recommendations for well-lit streets. “Nature is a shelter these women seek in their refuge from violence which is mostly perpetuated against them by decision-making patriarchy.”[10] Despite the appeal of the natural environment as this haven, the time and money barriers maintained unequally by many modern political systems often restrict the desired connection to nature to enhance personal well-being.[11]

     Practiced dualisms are a root source for this discord: femininity to masculinity, nature to culture, and the more commonly understood body to mind. Bridging these dualities will not only interfere with the systemically supported but result in deeper self-understanding. By recognizing both the oppressions of the human species and of other organisms fueled by Westernized culture, the return to biophilia and sensorial connections through the thing-ification of nature would be intensified and help to regress society further from the persistent exploitative practices.[12]

PSYCHO-ECOACOUSTICS

     The evolution of environmental soundscapes throughout the history of civilization is significant in examining the impacts that noise can have on human behaviors and emotions. Environmental psychology more broadly describes a person's perception of the physical world surrounding them with an emphasis on the five senses. It explores the differences between natural and built environments by studying their effects on human behavior, and especially how those behaviors affect the environment in return. The individual's connection to nature has become something measurable on a scale that relates “environmental values, behaviors, awareness, and time in nature.”[13] 

     While visual engagement has taken predominancy to aural ways humans interact with environment, the auditory space has much to offer. Acoustic ecology has been explored as the study of relationship between sound of life and society primarily to point to unhealthy imbalances.[14] “The perception of sound and noise is inherently psychological.”[15] Research is examining how natural soundscapes can have positive impacts on attention restoration and cognitive control by finding descriptive evidence that the playing of bird songs and wind audio clips from national parks is more beneficial than no sound at all.[16] In a more direct environmental awareness sense, bird song has been used as an indicator of unlivable chemical amounts in the air during early mining operations.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring identified the risks of bioaccumulation to egg-laying animals, especially raptors (1962); habitat destruction led to the near extinction of the snail darter (1977) and the Northern Spotted Owl (1980s); the fungal threat to the existence of the Cavendish banana (1992) brought attention to the Gros Michel banana crisis of the 1950s, both related to monocultural farming practices; a marked increase in malformed amphibians highlighted the issue of water pollution (1995); the decline of Monarch butterfly populations was linked to the rise of genetically modified crops (1999); and the global warming-induced extinction of polar bears, projected to occur within the next hundred years (2003), are all examples of canary-in-a-coal-mine scenarios.[17]

Noting how animal behavior gives additional evidence for the climate crisis provides opportunities for it to be more closely observed. The natural evolution of animal behavior shapes the environmental soundscape. The surprisingly high-frequency whistle calls of the Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) are a response to other sound frequencies occurring in the environment, most directly, the rustling of the foliage on evergreen trees from the wind. 

     While there are many approaches to using AI to adapt audio, key systems to this research project include relating notification sounds with their environment. On the everyday usage scale, a cell phone application, Warblr, is already fine-tuning the AI needed to quickly and conveniently identify birds in the UK by their songs with crowdsourced data on an interface similar to Shazam.[18] This project determines relevant sound clips over long periods of time using spectral mapping to visually assist in choosing quality biodiversity content. By emphasizing notable pieces of sonic information like bird songs from alpine areas of Colorado with quantitative individual relevancy, the effects of psycho-ecoacoustics will more strongly correlate human behavior’s relationship and hierarchal structure with nature and promote the conscious habit of listening to those environmental sounds.[19]

     There is innovative power that comes with understanding ecosystem relationships beyond what is visible to the human eye. Recentering to a more acoustic experience, in a more present sense than ambient background noise to tune out, is contradictory to the current attitudes towards visual stimulation.[20] Sound is a sensorial perception obvious enough to most hearing-abled humans that can greatly influence how environmental awareness can be practiced. 

ADAPTIVE & GENERATIVE AUDIO

     By using the field information collected about movement, elevation, and time to influence signals with the SonEco system, the emergence of adaptive audio usage makes for a real-life environmental awareness that could be compared to those simulated in video games. “To date, the development of adaptive music systems (AMSs) for video games is limited both by the nature of algorithms used for real-time music generation and the limited modeling of player action, game-world context, and emotion in current games,” making casual listenability of generative music almost absent, but in experimentation trials, outside of the gaming industry.[21]

     A recent research project relating the gestures of humans to MIDI music yielded significant results from a user study about their immersive experience within the room environment.[22] The instinctual reaction of participants in the user study was described as moving away from obstacles to not distort the music being produced by their tracked location. By additionally relating the noise itself to the environment the user is in, SonEco was used to demonstrate how immersion in an outdoor experience with an aural mapping of a user’s interaction over time would sound.

     Auditory notification indicators of sudden changes to environmental elements such as temperature and elevation in alpine regions can assist in decision-making during real-time explorations. SonEco models how these cue indications would be triggered to an individual user with the data collected on short-term field expeditions during winter sports activity in high-altitude areas around Colorado. While additional cues could potentially be provided by adapting user-made playlists to speed promptings or to accommodate the rising interest in fringe sports from the general population, relating topographic changes with tempo adjustments as well as noise signifiers for things like temperature, air-quality index, wildlife encounters, and natural disaster zones, that are beyond the scope of this project. 

   With the popularity of headphones in modern society, human listening has been increasingly studied for commercialization and immersive listening emergence. More directly, one mainstream movement is finding ways to tackle the reproduction of the natural ambisonic experience in the convenience and portability of everyday Bluetooth headphones. Additional leaps in the headphone industry include head tracking, equalization, and sound scene decomposition to best render natural sounds for fully immersive listening.[23] Innovations are even further emerging with attempts to fully eliminate user interaction with devices altogether through sound-beaming technologies and in the syncing of ambient noise to moods, though currently being primarily researched for productivity increase purposes.[24]

     Applications that are leading the movement into fully integrating biometric and psychometric data into generative AI music have been Endel and Weav which both adjust the tempos of songs to their incoming information such as weather, location, heart rate, and steps. Endel more specifically experiments with sound masking techniques to perfectly play off of the existing distracting sounds, or noise pollution, in one’s environment to boost wellness by composing endless responsive soundscapes of music with artificial intelligence (AI). Weav works instead to sync a user’s workout experience to music that already exists for the best possible experience by impacting motivation levels in things like running and skiing.[25] The ski coaching application, Carv, further advances these techniques in mainstream ways by using a device that can attach to a user’s ski boot for monitoring pressure and motion to enhance the customization of the audio feedback for instruction purposes. These innovations are resulting in more adaptive options beyond auditory response, including integrating workout-motivating vibrations into sneakers, much like an Apple Watch will remind you to stand. 

SOUND MAPS & CYBERCARTOGRAPHY

    Emerging sound maps can be described as a technique encouraging humans to slow down and tune into their surroundings in both urban and natural landscapes. They are geographic maps that point to a certain aural experience given a specific location. By connecting sound maps to a specific story, individual user, set of quantitative information, and interest in society, the research intersects with innovative uses of cybercartography.

Cybercartography is now defined as a complex, holistic, user-centered process which applies location-based technologies to the analysis of topics of interest to society, and the presentation of the results in innovative ways through cybercartographic atlases. A cybercartographic atlas is a metaphor for all kinds of qualitative and quantitative information linked by location and displayed in innovative, interactive, multi-modal and multisensory formats. Cybercartographic atlases permit user communities to tell their own stories. Both mapping and storytelling are basic human instincts and are a central part of the holistic nature of Cybercartography.[26]

Relating an environment’s story to the user interacting with it is a practice used frequently to enhance an experience, even just in themed walking tours of a city.

     This intersection of sound mapping and cybercartographic approaches is framed by SonEco’s use of information to interpret aurally back to a user in relation to their location and the promotion of environmental awareness. This is done to provide insight into the soundscape in which they interact and the potential to influence the soundscape through their actions. This cybercartographic atlas contains the stories, or Treks, of winter sport activity in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region and the songs of the birds who naturally inhabit the environment creating a deeper relationship between the user’s interaction and the space.

     The act of listening is inherently disruptive and cannot be forced, so it's helpful to have non-threatening guidance on how to do it and its importance for ecoacoustics.[27] Soundwalking has been explored as a method for understanding our ear-to-environment relationship without interference.[28] To expand on this method as well as the popularity of everyday headphone usage, the notification system model adapts a naturally occurring environmental sound.

     The relationship between nature and listening habits can be enhanced through sound mapping. Explorations of soundscapes through musical style recordings can demonstrate deeper awareness practices, for example the pitches and rhythms of the Danube River.[29] The goal of the SonEco system is to emerge a new routine of how the unique story composition that the environment and its listeners create is presented, shared, and actively listened to.