In the MUST project we aim to find new ways of understanding more-than-human species and communicating their needs to decision-makers and urban planners, among other actors. The MUST Platform – a dome-shaped audio-visual space – was designed to convey the needs of other species through soundscapes and visual images.

The MUST Platform (4m x 6m) is portable and can be assembled and dissembled on the spot. The Platform had a successful test run in March 2024 in Helsinki. At the time, the dome theatre only had the audio element.

Last summer the MUST project’s researchers Jonathan Carruthers-Jones, John Allen, Margarita Kondakova, Christopher Raymond and Silviya Korpilo took the extended MUST Platform to the next level during the MUST Festival in Turku. We built the MUST Platform in Logomo’s Move room which provided total isolation from the surrounding sounds as well as allowed total darkness enhancing the immersive dome theatre experience.

This time, in addition to the spatial audio coming from every direction out of the nine speakers, the platform was equipped with three hand-made diamond-shaped fabric windows or screens, onto which the images and the video footage were projected.

We had two different objectives regarding the MUST Platform setup in Turku. Firstly, we set up the audio-visual dome theatre experience “Listening in to the Sounds of Finland’s Forests” for the public and project stakeholders to enjoy during the MUST Festival. Secondly, “Your Place Matters” research was conducted over the course of a couple of months in May–June, and the dome was used for this purpose as well.

Listening in to the Sounds of Finland’s Forests in the dome

The MUST Platform experience, called “Listening in to the Sounds of Finland’s Forests”, was based around the audio recordings and video footage from five different locations in Finland, including Turku, Kuhmo and Kilpisjärvi. The audio was obtained via passive acoustic monitoring: there are currently 35 recorders placed in different regions of Finland which record for one minute every 10 minutes 24/7 to collect acoustic data without the researcher’s presence and thus produce reliable representation of the soundscape in that particular forest area.

Each screen was set to show different images: the forest landscape, a photo or a video of the animal one could hear in the recording, and finally a spectrogram of the soundscape along with the name of the species in question. The spectrogram shows activity in different frequency ranges during the recording and thereby makes the bird calls ‘visible’. The whole footage (apart from the forest sound recordings) was narrated to provide the audience with some relevant background information on the areas as well as the field of eco-acoustics in general.

The audio-visual dome-experience was open to everyone free of charge during the days of the MUST Festival. Around 100 people attended the dome, including kindergarten groups as well as the project’s Turku stakeholders. The 15-min long dome theatre experience received positive response and seemed to captivate the audience of all ages from the beginning to the end, to the delight of us organizers.

Connecting with nature: Your Place Matters

The second objective for the platform was “Your Place Matters” research done in Turku in May–June 2024. The purpose of the research was to study how contact with nature in different types of environments affects people’s behaviour and understanding of nature. The research consisted of three main stages – the pre-survey, the MUST Platform experience or a soundwalk, and the post-survey. During both the MUST Platform experience and the soundwalks, participants experienced and reflected on soundscapes from three areas of different urban gradients.

The two-hour long soundwalks took place in the Halistenkoski area of Turku, in small groups of two to four persons. Participants visited the stops on foot in random order and listened to the soundscape of each of the stops in silence for two minutes. Later they were presented with a few questions about their perceptions of the surrounding sounds as well as about how they imagine other species experience the same soundscape.

Some questions encouraged the participants to try to get into the mind of another animal, for example: “How would you improve this soundscape if you were, say, a bird or a squirrel?”

The MUST Platform experience, in turn, was designed to mimic the exact same soundwalk experience indoors with the help of the 360-video footage and spatial sound recorded in the same areas as the walk. The group size in the dome was around four to six people, and the walk itself was slightly shorter due to the lack of a long transition between stops.

We researchers received a lot of positive feedback from the participants who enjoyed reflecting on the role of sound in everyday lives of all living beings in the city. Although most participants found thinking from a perspective of other animals and speculating about their experiences quite challenging (since there is practically no real way of asking the species what they want), they also thought that this experience expanded their views on the needs of the more-than-human world. Some even reported later on or now often thinking about these themes as they walk in the city.

What is next to come?

The next steps for the MUST project will be modelling different scenarios inside the MUST Platform to raise awareness on local and global issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change. In terms of the structure of the platform, the goal is to cover the whole dome with fabric and thus turning the platform into a fully immersive 360 video and sound experience. More soundwalks will also be conducted in the future in other Finnish cities, notably in Tampere in 2025.

Text: Margarita Kondakova, Master’s student, University of Helsinki

Pictures: Margarita Kondakova and the team. 1. People inside the dome, 2. Building the MUST dome, 3. Kindergarten group enjoying the MUST theatre experience, 4. One of the stops of the soundwalk, 5. The Platform is designed to mimic the soundwalking experience indoors with the help of the 360 video footage and spatial sound.