A Sonic Journey Through the Universe | Felipe Sánchez Luna | TED

The world is full of sound.

(Synth sounds)

It's all around us all the time.

(Synth sounds with beats)

If it's carefully designed,

we can use it to tap directly into our feelings

and evoke a deeper connection to ourselves and the world.

(Synths continue)

As a group of composers, sound designers,

creative technologists and musicologists,

my team and I combine all this knowledge to create sound experiences

that convey stories and ideas.

(Synth sounds continue)

We use scientific data as musical scores,

translating complex information into a language we can easily understand.

We work with field recordings,

compose linear and modal music,

and use technology to understand, control and generate melodies.

(Synths continue)

We are merging art, music, technology and science

into the field of sound scenography,

using the auditory sense

to foster an emotional understanding of our world.

(Synth sounds continue)

So let me take you on a sonic journey of music and code,

where ones and zeros are mixed with notes and rhythms

and poetry meets science.

What you are about to hear is a combination of recordings from nature

and our surroundings,

data-and-AI-driven music

and a lot of human creativity.

So relax,

and if you feel comfortable, close your eyes,

take a deep breath,

and listen closely.

Allow yourself to feel.

(Revolving soundscapes)

We begin in the water.

(Sounds of surf)

(Underwater sounds)

Here in the deep, we hear tiny creatures,

different textures,

or even the contrast between the Atlantic ...

(Underwater sounds continue)

and the Pacific Ocean.

(Quieter underwater sounds)

We follow the sounds of seals

and bring the elusive song of the harbor porpoise

to the range of our human hearing.

(Porpoise vocalizations and water sounds)

The ocean is speaking to us.

(Water sounds and synth music)

Let’s move out of the water into dry land,

and dig deep into the Earth.

(Harsh, booming sounds)

(Quieter, grumbling sounds)

Countless small animals, like earthworms, grubs and ants,

they interact, they communicate

and work tirelessly to maintain a perfect ecosystem.

(Scratching and digging sounds)

Through geophones and soil sensors,

we can capture these voices and hear the soil singing to us.

(Synth music and scratching sounds)

But it’s our human creativity that can interpret, modulate, filter

and mix all these recordings with music,

creating a tapestry of sound

that gives a voice to the complex world hidden under our feet.

(Synth music)

From here, we take flight high into the sky.

(Booming and whooshing sounds)

Feel the lightness of traveling through air

while enjoying the mystical messages carried by birdsongs.

(Synth music and bird vocalizations)

Let's focus our attention on that hermit thrush,

as it sings to us.

(Birdsong)

Within that song is a message,

that if we slow it down, we can comprehend.

(Synth music)

Every bird finds his voice in this intricate orchestration.

And while they all play together in perfect harmony,

we need to find our place in this acoustic ecosystem.

(Synth music and sounds of nature)

Let’s keep moving up, into the sky ...

(Synth music)

through the atmosphere ...

(Whooshing sound)

into the vast emptiness of space.

(Synth vocals)

In this abstract place, where there is no sound,

we reach only to the power of music

to try to make sense

out of the relationship between sound and time.

(Low warbling and synth vocals)

As the sound of a voice,

we travel to the center of a black hole

and wonder what will happen to us in the presence of this cosmic force.

(Layered synth vocals and music)

We are being stretched,

as our musical body just falls apart.

New and old musical concepts collide into a timeless sound mass,

leaving all sense of structure behind.

(Layered synth vocals and music)

We are surrounded by the past, the present and the future,

all at the same time,

while information and matter lose all their meaning.

(Layered synth vocals and music)

(Music lowers in volume)

It is here, in this emptiness,

that we find ourselves traveling to the human imagination,

an infinitely magical place,

bound only by our creativity.

(Vocals, nature sounds and music)

(Shifting musical patterns)

We hear artificial intelligence making music

and envision the potential of new collaborations.

(Synth music and synth sounds of nature)

Explosions of sounds and melodies

remind us of the importance of emotional communication,

while simultaneously giving us an idea of the creative process

being enhanced by technology.

(Synth music and synth sounds of nature)

As we return from our journey

and rejoin one another in this room,

let us embrace the force of human imagination

and use sound to connect deeper to ourselves and to others.

Let us open ourselves

to the transformative power of sound

and its contribution to a new emotional understanding of our world.

(Synth music ends)

Thank you.

(Cheers and applause)