People understand biodiversity and the needs of other species in very different ways. MUST’s Work Package 1 is in the process of establishing a technical platform to raise community awareness about the needs of other species and the effect of human disturbance on species and ecosystems. The platform will also enable companies and city and national policy–makers to identify and manage the conflicts associated with managing for nature-based solutions (e.g., urban forests) and grey infrastructure (e.g., solar farms).

This platform is a 6 m diameter x 4m high geodesic dome comprising of 9 speakers that enables small groups of people to listen to the sounds of nature in an interactive way. The research project will explore the idea that immersive listening experiences may serve as one way to increase the connection between people and the other animals we share the landscape with. You can listen-in remotely to an audio snapshot of this immersive listening experience recorded in an area near the dome test space at Viikki Campus by listening below. This highlights the way that in urban areas the ‘soundscape’ is made up of a combination of human and animal sounds, in this case the hum of traffic and the calls of several different bird species.

In the near future, a cover will be placed over the dome structure, enabling the MUST team to project images on to the platform. Approximately 6 people will be invited into the dome each time, and they will be presented with different audiovisual narratives of Finnish forests affected by different levels of habitat management and human influence. Alpha and Beta testing of the dome will occur between March and May 2024. We will publicly launch the platform at the first MUST Festival on the 7-8 June 2024 in Turku.

Many thanks to Dr Jonathan Carruthers-Jones from MUST and Till Bovermann who is a Professor of Sound Art at HMTM, University of Munich and entrepreneur at plonk, for setting up the platform for its alpha test. Additional thanks to Maxim Narbrough at Hypha for his work on designing and building the final dome structure.

Are you interested in being part of research activities in the MUST Platform? If so, please contact us at info@multispecies.fi

The spatial audio ‘alpha’ testing of the MUST Platform at Viikki Campus, University of Helsinki, March 2024.

Professor Till Bovermann and Dr Jonathan Carruthers-Jones, the lead creators of the MUST Platform