Animal Song Art: Big Pic
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Dec. 18, 2009 -- Artist Mark Fischer created the image above by converting the sound frequencies of a male humpback whale song into a graph using a mathematical process known as wavelets. According to Fischer, "Wavelets reveal structure and detail that are not always visible in standard graphs of frequency over time." Instead of a spectrogram, he used a polar coordinate (circular) graph to generate a visual of the low frequency moan and cry emitted by a humpback whale during mating season.
Multiple, tweeting birds are represented in the image below. Fischer used the same mathematical "wavelet" process involved in the creation of the male humpback whale song visual. The artist claims it shows what happens when birds are "singing into a graph."
White beaked dolphin sounds are represented in the wavelet graph below. "Dolphins produce a wide variety of high frequency vocalizations, such as clicks, whistles and cries," writes artist Mark Fischer. "These sounds are used for echolocation and communication with other dolphins. They can be recorded using underwater hydrophones." In this case, Fischer used the frequencies of white beaked dolphin sounds to produce a flower-resembling image. Patterns, such as the flower shape, spirals, and other geometric designs, often repeat in nature, even at the molecular scale.
Image credit: Mark Fischer/Aguasonic Acoustics, USA
Captions by Jennifer Viegas
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