At the Center of the Universe, 2020 

“At the Center of the Universe” is a sound installation put together to simulate an ecosystem through sound. Speakers were arranged in a circle, with the center having pillows for participants to lie on. The installation consisted of three major sound components. The first was audio of three endangered bird species, that as time goes on, becomes distorted and less recognizable as animal. These audio pieces played out of their own boomboxes, arranged around the feet of participants. The second piece of audio was sound compiled from data of the ecosystems of these endangered bird species, as well as global statistics such as population increase and global sea level rise. This ecosystem audio was played on speakers arranged around the heads of participants. Finally, the third component was audio compiled from influential environmental speeches that was distorted to play at a very deep tone. This audio was played from a Bluetooth speaker, that participants held on their chest in order to feel the sound vibrating through their bodies.

“At the Center of the Universe” seeks to challenge the notion of doom when it comes to environmental breakdown while also acknowledging the severity of the situation we find ourselves in. The installation was specifically designed to situate humans at the center. Humans tend to put themselves at the center of everything. Human life and comfort is prioritized above all else. This perspective can be pointed to as a root cause of our environmental disaster. The choice to use transcoded environmental speeches was to situate humans at the center of the climate crisis, and also at the center of the solution. While a participant in the sound installation may take in all the sounds around them, good or bad, it is them situated at the center of the crisis, and them alone who can acknowledge it and force change.

The last sounds within the installation that you hear before silence is the faint sound of bird songs, and the distorted audio of their calls, as well as the last buzzing bass of global population rise data. This decision to leave some bird songs at the end intertwined with a portion of the ecosystem audio is to signify that with time and intense effort, we can learn to live together in harmony rather than total domination.

Below is the full audio rounding out at around five and a half minutes. This set of audio was recorded with a 360 VR audio recorder, to give a sense of the space that the sound inhabited, including any ambient noise.