The Beach Buoys

This Web Audio reconstruction preserves the conceptual and methodological foundations of the original PhD work while translating its operations into a browser-based context. As in the initial design, The Beach Buoys explores a reversal of earlier “one-place/many-parameters” sonification strategies (e.g. Playing the Weather) by adopting a “one-parameter/many-places” model: the wave-period data reported by multiple CDIP sea buoys forms the primary generative driver. The resulting texture positions the listener in an effectively omnipresent role, hearing the aggregation of small, independently driven elements distributed across wide geographic distances.

The work continues to draw explicitly on sound-mass techniques developed by Ligeti, particularly the micropolyphonic structures of Atmosphères (1961) and the massed mechanics of Poème Symphonique (1962) as well as Xenakis’ conception of “totality,” in which numerous autonomous parts combine into a statistically coherent sonic event (Metastasis, 1955; Pithoprakta, 1956). In this context, each buoy behaves as a discrete generative agent whose behaviour is governed by real-time environmental data. The overlapping, asynchronous loops produced by differing wave periods recall the “incommensurable loops” described by Eno in relation to Music for Airports (1978), where independent durations create emergent structures through their combinatorial interactions.

Technically, the Web Audio version re-implements the earlier system, formerly distributed between a Python data-acquisition layer and a Pure Data processing environment, entirely within the client-side audio engine. A sustained vocal chord extracted from You Still Believe in Me (The Beach Boys, 1966) forms the sole source material, chosen both for its choral sonority and for the conceptual resonance of the musical pun. This material is continually time-stretched and looped, with each buoy’s reported wave period determining the duration of its own cycle. Simultaneously, the 64-bin spectral analysis transmitted by each buoy is mapped onto a dynamic filter curve that modulates the timbral profile of the loop, ensuring that each channel acquires a distinct spectral identity despite originating from the same sample.

At this stage it only seems right that I should also acknowledge Bob Sturm’s pioneering work on ocean-wave sonification, particularly his use of buoy-derived FFT spectra to drive audification-based compositions; his research provided an important conceptual precedent for my own engagement with this data domain.

The aggregate result is a homogeneous yet constantly shifting sound mass whose behaviour mirrors the unbounded, cyclical nature of the ocean itself. Where the orchestral sound masses of Ligeti and Xenakis tend toward resolution within the time-constraints of instrumental performance, The Beach Buoys embodies what may be termed an “infinite approach”: a continuously generative texture whose subtle evolutions correspond to ongoing environmental change. Although its technical infrastructure has been reconfigured for the Web Audio API, the work maintains fidelity to the original compositional intent and remains grounded in the same theoretical and aesthetic concerns.

I couldn’t resist the urge to tweak the work slightly – I added in some lower frequencies by mixing an octave-down version into the source sample to give it more depth, and I added a little silence at the end of the sample. The original version sonified 10 buoys at once but I found this too taxing on the browser (especially on mobiles). Six seemed a good enough compromise. The buoys are now a randomly chosen selection from all those available down the California coastline.

You can, of course, read about the original in my PhD Thesis