Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Music academics transform energy into sound to win international challenge
Kingsley Ash, Senior Lecturer, and Dr Nikos Stavropoulos, Reader, in the School of Film, Music and Performing Arts, were presented with the award during the Verbund Energy2050 conference in Fuschl bei Salzburg, Austria. Verbund is Austria's largest electricity provider and the conference brings together top decision-makers from all areas of economy, politics and science relating to energy.
Kingsley and Nikos won the award for their system for the translation of Austrian energy data into sound.
Kingsley explained: “The system we made gives each type of energy (solar/wind/hydro electric/etc.) its own unique sound. It allows you to hear how much energy is being produced from them and how this changes over the course of a day, a month or a year. So, you can hear the increase in solar energy as the sun comes up and the increase in wind energy produced during the winter months, for example. This approach of turning data into sound is called 'sonification', and is my specialist research area. I have also created systems that turn bird population data into sound and air quality data into music!”
Following the Energy2050 conference, the team are now in discussion with the Austrian national power grid to develop the work further for use in their visitor centres and control rooms.
Speaking about winning the award, Kingsley said: “We are very happy to have won the award. We were up against teams from across Europe, so there was some strong competition both from other universities and from professional sound-design companies. The combination of technical and creative skills is a real strength in our School, and I think it was this that gave us the edge that allowed us to create the winning entry.”
Together the team form part of the Echochroma New Music Research Group, which furthers the development of compositional language and tools through practice-led research.
Kingsley added: “We created individual sounds for each kind of energy. For example, renewable energy sources such as hydropower or wind power are depicted by natural sounds, while energy from fossil sources is represented by rhythmic and machine-like sounds. Sonification is still in an early stage of development. With our system it is possible to experience energy data in a completely new, intuitive way."
Wolfgang Anzengruber, CEO of Verbund, said: "With the Innovation Challenge 2017, over the course of the summer, Verbund sought out innovative solutions for three different energy-related tasks. Our teams in the areas of electricity generation, transmission and consumer solutions identified relevant questions, genuine 'needs', and called on the international research community to find solutions for them."
More than 50 start-ups, research teams, university institutes and SMEs took part in preliminary talks with the supporting Verbund teams. Twenty-six candidates from 12 different countries then submitted their applications. The application documents were evaluated by a jury according to uniform criteria. Three finalists per challenge had the opportunity to present their ideas at a Pitching Day the end of July in Vienna. The Leeds Beckett team won their challenge and presented their work, alongside winners from Spain and Austria in the other two challenges, to the energy industry at Energy2050.
Image l-r: Gerhard Christiner, Chief Technology Officer of Austrian Power Grid, Kingsley Ash, Wolfgang Anzengruber, CEO of Verbund