IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022 - 24

The Great Animal Orchestra spectrogram projections across the Sydney Opera
House. (Source: Krause.)
the shore of the Beaufort Sea. He was
" accidentally attacked by a killer whale in
the Antarctic-on land! " he says.
Still, he explains, although these
may be the adventures that would entertain
a television audience, these large
animals don't present the greatest danger.
" Once you earn your creds in the
field, " he explains, " you'll understand
that it ain't the
large critters you need
to watch out for. It's
the ones you can't
see that'll get you
when you're not
paying careful
attention to your
surroundings. "
It's not the exciting
adventures,
though, that appeal
most to Krause. It's the
connection to the natural
world. " The only moments I
have been able to relax and restore a bit
of calm internally are when I'm in range
of these therapeutic soundscapes, " says
Krause, who has suffered with attentiondeficit/hyperactivity
disorder throughout
his life. In fact, this is how his career
began: where no medication or therapy
could help him, recording biophonies in
the wild did.
The
exhibit is a
blend of art and
science, one that
intrigues and then
compels the audience to
hear for themselves the
changing biophonies
of the natural
world.
The Sound of Changing Habitats
Over time, however, he began to notice
how the soundscapes presented an indicator
of the health of a habitat. The
more diverse and dense the soundscape,
the healthier the habitat. In the 1980s,
after a few decades of revisiting the same
areas, Krause had audio proof that many
habitats were changing because
of local human endeavors
such as logging, mining,
and construction
as well as the global
implicat ions of
climate change.
He now he a r s
much less density
and less diversity.
Where these sites
once sounded like a
100-piece orchestra,
now they seem more
like a quartet.
The Great Animal Orchestra
brings that reality to the public. The
idea was born when the French version
of Krause's book was discovered by Anthropologist
Dr. Bruce Albert while he
was working in Brazil with the Yanomami
tribe. " Excited by the central theme-how
animals taught us to dance and sing-Albert
sent a copy to his good friend and
colleague, Hervé Chandès, director of the
24
Fondation Cartier, " Krause says. Chandès
met with Krause in California, where
they " poured over many hours of material. "
What they were looking for, Krause
explains, were examples from " thriving
wild communities of nonhuman organisms
originally recorded when they were
still magnificently vocal but now under
threat from either climate change or
human enterprise. " In The Great Animal
Orchestra exhibit, listeners hear for
themselves how habitats have changed
over the years because of human impact.
Of his vast collection, Krause estimates
that well over 50% are recordings of habitats
that no longer exist.
The exhibit is a blend of art and science,
one that intrigues and then compels
the audience to hear for themselves
the changing biophonies of the natural
world. " While the Cartier piece conveys
my notion of art, which is to create performances
of wonder I most want others
to see and hear manifest in this world,
my work in science is dedicated to the
study and reflections of my findings with
regard to the changing land and soundscapes
of the planet given their response
to global heating and transformation of
our still-habitable Earth, " Krause says.
The exhibit, which also traveled to London,
Milan, Shanghai, and Seoul after
premiering in Paris in 2016, has allowed
Krause to have a much wider reach with
the public than scholarly articles.
These days, Krause is looking for
an academic home for his decades of
recordings, an irreplaceable trove of
information, so that scientists and
conservationists will be able to study
the soundscapes. " All we gotta do is
learn to listen. Those critter voices will
tell you all you need to know. And trust
me, at this moment their messages
are both troubling and unassailable, "
Krause warns.
-Katianne Williams
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2022
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022

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