Episode description

Spiders Song is a story about a quest to hear the greatest symphony on Earth: the music of evolution. Along the way, we get to know some of nature’s most surprising musicians — the paradise jumping spiders.

Part 1 is the Spiders

Part 2 is the Song

Headphones advised.

— — —

For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song

Missed Part 1? You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureecologies.net

— — —

But there's more to this story than just a couple podcast episodes!

We're also releasing an open-source system which may be used to hear evolutionary patterns as music.

As you'll hear in Part 2, data sonification, the sonic equivalent of data visualization, has found applications in many scientific fields, but never before in phylogenetics: the study of evolutionary relationships.

This sonification system is intended as an experimental platform for evolutionary biologists to explore and communicate their data through sound, and for musicians to take inspiration from biodiversity. It is built in Max/MSP, and released under a GNU-GPLv3 license for customization and further development. 

Find a lovingly illustrated explanation of our sonification at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song#explanation

• Listen to / download the full length sonification on its own
• Get the source code and a detailed technical explanation, and
• Watch a video of the patch in action

— — —

Funding for this series was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.

But ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going and growing, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

Our patrons get early episode releases, exclusive bonus audio content, access to a fantastic discord server, 50% discounts on all merch, and more (eg. a livestream tour of the sonification system that we built).