"Sunset Realizations"
The concept of Sunset Realizations revolves around James Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyscape at Rice University. The structure, with a ceiling illuminated by changing color LED lights, allows for a view of the sky at sunrise and sunset, and thereby a reflective interaction with the natural world. When I learned Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyscape has hidden acoustic fixtures that permit live or electronic musical performances, I was immediately inspired to craft a sound aspect that would pair with such a space that plays on people’s perception of the sky. A common question regarding the sky is why it is the shade of blue, though what I questioned for this project was what determines the intensity of color at sunset. For my sonified data, I used four pertinent weather conditions that predict the intensity of a sunset; cloud levels, cloud coverage percentage,air quality, humidity, and wind speed.
I sonified different types of sunsets using the aforementioned data. This patch is in communication with a processing sketch. The processing code has a visualization aspect of my project, which represents the colors and wind speed you would see during certain sunsets. And when I press an associated key for a certain sunset then that’s when you’ll start to hear the sonified sunset data. Above is a video I made of everything put together in which there is a typical Texas sunset, a pink sunset, an orange sunset, and a yellowish/gold sunset.
