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BIRD SOUNDS
How might a visual evoke the sensation of hearing a bird? These p5 sketches explore the conversion of sound into visual data capturing bird songs in rhythmic visuals.
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Bird sounds from left to right: American Robin, Redwinged Blackbird, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Bluejay, Song Sparrow, Catbird.
LOGIC
The color patterns in the bird song visualization are inspired by the typical color identification used by birders, focusing on key parts of the bird's body such as the wings, belly, head, and beak. The circles are distributed in a ratio that generally matches the scale of the bird body parts. Multiple colors can be selected for frequently multi-colored areas like the wings and head.
This approach produces an iconic symbol that mirrors the bird's coloring. The resulting graphic provides a dual-channel output, pairing sound with visual elements, which can enhance the retention of both the bird song and its associated colors in memory. The diagram below illustrates how the dual channel output enhances our perceptual understanding of the bird.
APPLICATIONS
Bird song visualization can be integrated with smart devices to provide alerts for various users. It can benefit those with no auditory abilities, older individuals experiencing hearing loss, or birders in urban environments where bird sounds compete with traffic, airplanes, and other human-generated noises. A gentle haptic vibration could accompany the visual output, adding a tactile dimension to the perceptual awareness channels. This feature could be implemented on a smartwatch or as part of a wearable device, minimizing distractions and enabling real-time awareness without the need to navigate through screens and buttons to capture the sound.