Humming Mississippi

Humming Mississippi, an installation by Derick Ostrenko and Jesse Allison, will be featured in ISEA 2014 Location: The 20th International Symposium on Electronic Art, October 30 through November 8, 2014, at New York University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Humming Mississippi is a sonic sculpture that performs a section of the Mississippi River on resonant wood planks as an organic instrument. In collaboration with researchers from LSU’s Coastal Hydraulics Lab, a LIDAR scan of the Mississippi River floor was used to mill 18 miles of riverbed into individual planks of cedar. Small transducers attached to the back of each plank transform the board into a speaker colored by the individual characteristics of the wood and influenced by the carving of the river’s contours. The audio composition is generated and based off a linear reading of river topology combined with a sonification of real-time river data, including temperature, salt content, flow rate, and river height. A mobile application allows viewers to interact with the piece by manipulating the pitch of sonic hums that play back through their device and the installation in real-time. Visit hummingmississippi.net for more information.

Derick Ostrenko holds joint appointments at LSU: he is the program coordinator and assistant professor of digital art at LSU and a member of the cultural computing research group at the Center for Computation & Technology. He teaches classes in creative coding, 3D graphics, interactive installation, and video production.