Pulse Memorial
currently in progress (2024)
The most recent iteration is a web boradcast, https://pulse.memorial/, made in collaboration with August Black.
SIGGRAPH paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3680530.3695450
The Pulse Memorial is a web-streamed sound installation that commemorates the lives lost in the mass shooting at the Pulse Bar in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed forty-nine Latine, Black, and queer patrons. This tragedy happened in June 2016 during a period of heightened fear among immigrant and marginalized communities anticipating the Trump election victory in November. Inspired by Toni Morrison's concept of " disremembrance," which denotes an emotional experience of erasure due to a lack of acknowledgment, this web broadcast disrupts disremembrance by using sound to evoke presence. The installation commemorates victims that continue to be erased out of broader histories of domestic terrorism and gun violence. The broadcasted sound plays an 8-channel score, then transmitted via WebRTC to participants—one channel per device—for a multi-channel sonic event. This project transforms memorials from passive, site-specific events to community-driven experiences. It provokes curiosity about digital media's role in preserving cultural memory and amplifying marginalized voices.
I generate sound through a technique of data sonification using numerical data associated with each victim (their birthday and victim number, listed alphabetically) to craft several original musical scores. The sound is meant to function as a narrative or memorials to commemorate the victims. The sound installations are digital and thus do not only exist on fixed spaces, but are grafted temporarily onto already existing architecture. Moreover, this proposal reimagines the potential of vibrational sonic experiences: the basis for many esoteric healing practices, such as those found in sound baths and tantric chanting, for example, where vibrations at particular frequencies cause calming, soothing, and meditative states of rest. The final output will be through web streaming, particularly through mobile browsers, of audience members to create a digital caphony memorial.
Our future work will explore haptics and geolocation, aiming to use the Web Vibration API (currently in development) to combine tactile feedback with streaming and enhance the Memorial's accessibility. Participants will ideally hold devices to their chest to feel vibrations. Additionally, we will integrate the Geolocation API to show the relative proximity of connected participants through multiple dots in the interface. Additionally we will collaborate with the community in Florida, and composers/ misucians to create 41 more tracks, yield 49 in total. As a memorial experience, drawing participants together in a shared moment of reflection and remembrance, the aim is to continue to grow this sense of proximity, shared space, and community that the web provides.
8 Channel soundscape
Mobile interface view:
Technical diagram