About This Event
SPECTRAL is a 4+1 channel spatial sound installation built from real measurement data recorded by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP). The work translates humanity's closest-ever machine perception of the Sun into an immersive, physically grounded sonic experience. As the fastest human-made object ever built and the one to travel closest to the Sun, PSP moves through the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, the corona, within an extreme radiation environment, withstanding a surrounding plasma that reaches temperatures in the millions of degrees Celsius. Its scientific instruments act like antennae reaching toward the Sun, recording electromagnetic field fluctuations, plasma properties, and energetic particle activity invisible to the human eye. In this work, PSP is cast as the sole perceiving subject, its first-person perspective anchoring the piece. Four historic milestones from its journey form the work's movements: its first perihelion pass, its first crossing of the Alfvén Surface into the corona, its passage through a violent solar storm, and its record-breaking closest approach. These four data segments form the work's four chapters, interweaving raw physical waveforms with fragmented, granular textures to reconstruct a deep-space auditory narrative traversing invisible magnetic fields and solar storms. SPECTRAL is created by Yuening Cai (MSDA, Department of Computer Science), with scientific collaboration from Luke Kathmann (PhD student, Department of Physics and Astronomy). The project is supported by the Arts Integration Initiative Grant, awarded by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
