Sound of Storm: Memory of a Sonic Disaster

According to Auspicious Family, extracting weather data into sound involves a method called Granular Synthesis, which was invented by Greek composer, Iannis Xenakis, then further pioneered by computer musician Curtis Roads.

Typhoon Maring hit Northern Luzon in October 2021. Fred was in Baguio at the time and experienced the 120 km/h brunt of the typhoon. He called it a sonic memory—remembering a disaster unfolding all around him. 

“It is in memory that we realize trauma, that we process a period of time, of how this experience exhudes in our humanity. Sound is what makes the typhoon known its existence, it’s a voice that tells you, that it is with you. The fury and agony of an unprecedented storm is a signal of our changing climate." - Derek Tumala

Derek of course, is one of my frequent collaborators. After his Art Residency with the Manila Observatory, he’s become a mentor of sorts in my pursuit of transdisciplinarity and I often go to him for advice on new concepts I want to try out with RENDER.

It was a bit of a dry and windy evening on the roof of the Manila Observatory’s Mirador Building. Named after the Mirador Villa in Baguio, which functioned as a postwar observatory, the building holds a panoramic view of MO’s Solar Building and the Marikina Fault.

Among the hum of MO’s robotics equipment and air quality sensors, Derek shared an excerpt from The Human Argument: The Writing of Agnes Denes.

“Humanity is at a turning point, facing major decisions in order to survive on the planet while it strives to maintain its moral values and the quality of life. Artistic vision, image, and metaphor are powerful tools for communication that can become expressions of human values with a profound impact on our consciousness and our collective destiny,” says Denes.

Sound of Storm, in my opinion, is a practice of meditation; of reflection of a broken world wrought by fossil fuels and extractive industries. By transforming weather data into sound, Auspicious attempted to make sense of disaster.

As the sun set, the crowd stood in silence as he presented his work; setting the sky on fire with a reverberating buzz.

It was eerie. It was haunting. It was like experiencing the heavens' disapproval.

"Finding poetry in horror is the art part of it, in our never ending attempt to understand nature, we turn to art to find a language that bridges the human and the non-human," said Derek.

There is something to be said about projects that embrace data and aim to present it in a captivating way. As the Philippines continues to be battered by extreme climate events, it's producing a new wave of thought and creating new spaces for experimentation.

It’s a strong voice of hope standing on a tightrope of fear and at times, the only thing left to do is listen. 

Tonichi Regalado is the Multidisciplinary Director of RENDER. Under the Manila Observatory’s Klima Center, works on Climate Change Research and Management. He develops projects in the fields of mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage (L&D).

Tonichi also sits on the board of directors for Care About Climate, a global capacity-building organization working on NDC equity and empowering climate policy in the UNFCCC. His research interests are in international climate policy, energy & ecology issues, as well as non-economic L&D.