Event 3: Noise Aquarium

This week, I can fortunately attend the event, Noise Aquarium, held by professor Victoria Vesna and talk to her in person. Before I came to this event, my understanding of noise effects in ocean will limit to those large animals such as whales and dolphins. When Vesna pinpoints there is almost nothing known about effects on the marvelous microscopic organisms, the first that came into my mind is "that's new but how can you show that?"

Although the quantity of invertebrate is large in the ocean, the reaction of those planktons can be hard to detect and catch based on their tiny sizes.  However, to my surprise, professor Vesna came up with a brilliant way to combine technology and arts in order to show the effect on organisms.



Professor Vesna first tomographically scanned seven microscopic organisms and transferred into digital three-dimensional figures on the screen. And she utilizes the data science to analyze the motions of microscopic organisms and project them on the screen. Then people will be asked to stand on a control station to use their body motion to balance the planktons under the noise background. If they fall to balance microscopic organisms, those organisms will explode themselves due to the noise.

   This event is a perfect example of combinations of technology and arts, which professor Vesna employs data science and motion capture to construct the microscopic figures on the screen and stay balanced under the noise. Besides those first-eye technology utilization, I also notice the noise sound inside the room is quite special.  This immersive sound technique is provided by Paul Geluso to imitate the close environment as the real ocean.