The Milky Way is the sound and the starry sky is the song “Where Parallel Lines Meet” “Optimistic” view of the universe
Text: MUZIK Editorial Department
Sophie Kastner, a composer from Montreal, Canada, used data collected by NASA from the Milky Way to compose “Where Parallel Lines Converge”, using music to take listeners into the depths of the universe.
Kastner explains: “At the end of the piece, I focused specifically on the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. You can feel the star spiraling toward the center… I wanted to bring out all these like crisp, high-pitched textures that are like sustained Like a spiral.”
The work is not just an artist’s impression, but is generated from data commonly used by NASA scientists to create visual images of deep space – in fact, the same data is used to construct images of the center of the Milky Way – which inspired his inspiration. The piece uses signals collected from the Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer telescopes and is performed with seven instruments. High-pitched instruments such as glockenspiel and violin are used to convey the movement and spiral of the black hole, while low-pitched instruments such as bass clarinet and The cello, on the other hand, captures the mystery that comes with gazing into the universe.
“We just mathematically mapped the image to convert those pixels into something that can be heard…the data from the deep space telescope was originally It is made up of 1s and 0s and records details such as the amount of energy or the position of the photon hitting the telescope. NASA has previously tried to use simple audio “Universe of Sound” to present this.”
At first, Kastner was only responsible for converting these soundscapes into musical scores for the musicians to use: “I slowly realized that there was more story to tell with this image…there was actually a complete musical work.”
Hearing the data transform into an exquisite piece of music, Arcand said in surprise, “I almost fell off my chair, it was so beautiful… It made me look at the data in a different way; it made me process it in a different way, and I I really appreciate it.”
Arcand recalled that the idea of converting raw data into sound originally came from her colleague Wanda Diaz, an astronomer who lost her sight early in her career, which led to the creation of “The Universe” that makes it easier to understand space while creating beautiful starry sky soundscapes. Sound: “One of the finished products is Galactic Center Sonification, which is a short soundscape from the Galactic Center image, the same material Kastner used,” says Arcand. “(You can hear) our The interior of the Milky Way, like the inner 400 light-years, kind of like the city center, there are black holes, little explosions and tons of stars. You’re listening to us convert these pixels into sound, and it’s a beautiful glimpse.”
For Arcand, the key was that the musical choices, especially in the “busiest” part of the galaxy, matched the scientific facts in the data: “It’s like being in Times Square, there’s a lot going on there. It’s full of energy. “In order for the listening brain to understand it, we need to make sure that the sounds are not only unique but also fit together appropriately,” he said.
This project made Kastner realize that the distance between art and science is not far away: “As humans, we are always trying to understand the world, and art is one of the ways of understanding.” She said: “Then combining science and art, Why not?”
