MONDAY
ONE
Spent the weekend thinking about a title for the whale walkie-talkie.
These are my notes:
listening with whales
eco-echo; aqua-otolith; echotolith; whale walkie-talkie; eco-echochamber; “A word in your shell-like”; Something about acoustic waves; Making waves with whales above water; Whale capacitor; Whale walkie-talkie; Listening with whales; the whale whisperer (if whispering is effective); whale resonator; whale caller; scrimshaw, scrimshander (from Moby Dick).
Echo and Narcissus - maybe for an accompanying pamphlet?
Pro: This really gets to the crux of our desire to communicate, our inability to do so, and our tendency to see our own reflection in everything…
Con: I always find it pretentious and middle class and Eurocentric when people refer back to the Greek and Roman myths - it’s super tempting since there are great resonances, but it’s also kind of lazy intellectual signalling.
Is there a Scottish or Madeiran equivalent?
Mythiceti (mysticeti)
Timpanic; Orcarina; Fossil echo; Delay; Ocean echo; Otolith echo; Deep sea echo; Transoceanic echo; Whale confessional; “What would you say to a whale?”; Five times the speed of sound; Whale whisperer; Kinetic echo; Kinechoic chamber; Backscatter balaena; Transducing Nemo; Amor cete
The 3D print could be inscribed with ‘ad amor peribat ceti’ toward the unrequited love of whales OR procul amore ceti - a distant love of whales OR ad amorem ceti - towards a distant love of whales. Figuring out these phrases led to an some interesting mistranslations (or perhaps just alternative translations) from Google translate when playing with Latin names for things. (I tend to the view that titling in Latin for artworks can also come across as a bit pretentious, but I would argue it feels more relevant in this case because of all the Latin used in biological taxonomy)
I’m sure others have used Google Translate as a writing prompt or method for creating semi-aleotoric poetry. Very small changes (such as capitalising or not capitalising the first letter) can lead to different translations. The similarity between unrequited and dying in Latin has led to some really dramatic results. I may include this found-poetry somehow in the presentation of the artwork. This is a really nice method for creating poetry. Introduce a phrase in English, translate to latin; translate the resulting latin phrase to English and continue until no more changes occur. Unrequited becomes event. (Unrequited, peribat, was perishing; pereuntum; result; eventum; result. eventus; event. Lovely associative language game. Incidentally, in French, évent is the word for blowhole, which translates in latin to vent.
Screen recording of google translate from English to Latin and reversed until the phrases remain stable
TWO
Doing more research on which whales interest me and why I become increasingly enamoured with the sperm whales. They are just cute for a start. Plus their codas and social clans are mega interesting.
Bowhead whales also very interesting - huge variety of songs - like songbirds - improvised each season and rarely repeated for more than a month. Also they are the longest lived - possibly up to 200 years.
THREE
Went through the whale whisperer idea with Marko again, brainstorming the tech a bit more and to make sure we were understanding each other. Two versions emerged, one where the transducer is simply to store energy, and one where the frequency of the speaking (powering) voice has a relationship with the output. If whispering is enough to power that would be great. But we agreed that a variety of ‘rewards’ in the way of whale calls would be ideal. I like the idea they would relate to frequency input, as long as we are not rewarding a violent or unsubtle interaction over a gentle one. He showed me the timeline on the cultural relationship with whales, and we realised whale whispering fits beautifully. Could call a paper “From Whaling to Whale Whispering” maybe…. it’s a nice continuity from Marko’s previous projects.
Tuesday
I spent the day thinking about the whale whisperer (as I think we’ve settled on it being called now).
WEDNESDAY
Discussed the whale whisperer with João. Disappointingly, the piezo electric energy production/ trigger etc. is not feasible in the time period we have, although they can look at it next year. The energy produced would be very low anyway, but Marko is still keen to pursue this.
As a compromise, to get something that demonstrates the concept, we will use a battery power source. When we calculated the different modules that would be needed using off the peg components it indicated we would need a larger ‘shell’ size. João had the idea (which I love!) to make a wireless charging base to contain power source and MCU (micro controller unit) and SD card etc. and turn the shell into an external speaker using bluetooth. It would have the addition of microphone and motion sensor so as to allow for the user’s speech to play some kind of role of modulating the audio files. So three triggers are available - 1. resting state (Joao suggested it could play the sound of the sea, which I also like) 2. Lift from base - magnet switch triggers sea sound to stop (abruptly or fade? I prefer fade if possible) 3. Speak into mic (to trigger which sound will play - options are some kind of voice frequency recognition/ duration/ volume etc. to trigger different sounds. Needs some kind of coding or parameter mapping. 4. Lifting to ear (light blocking sensor.).
TWO
The limpet team were celebrating the close of a four year research project. Carlos Andrade, the PI Told me it had been a great success and they had discovered a lot of totally new things (like the relationship between coralline algae and limpet settlement). Here’s a good interview with Carlos, earlier in the project.
https://mare-madeira.pt/aquaculture-in-the-atlantic/
They had a celebratory bbq with grilled limpets (lapas) and bolo de caco (Madeira garlic bread) and an amazing limpet and mussels risotto. Best food I’ve had since being here.
THREE
IDEA for a whale ocarina - a musical instrument for communicating with whales. Maybe in the shape of the ear bone, but formed in ceramic to be an ocarina.
THURSDAY
Diving. Garajau. Up to 30 m maybe. Saw PAM device. It was scary but good. My ‘buddy’ ran out of air and had to be escorted back with two others, leaving me and one other diver waiting for him to return, all communicated by hand signals. I didn’t really know what was going on, but the other diver managed to explain to me. Interesting about not being able to communicate acoustically in the normal way underwater because of breathing apparatus. It’s a kind of ironic reversal. We become even more reliant on vision underwater, where sound travels more efficiently for marine mammals.
FRIDAY
ARDITI Christmas workshop and party. I was in a group with Lori (parasites intern), Clara and Mifalda as well as Viktor (killers next door). We had to explain EELab but none of us knew what it was.
