The humble spider has always been well represented in the music world, from Ziggy Stardust and Doubtless to The WHO Wilco, and Lil B’s amateur arachnologyBut for too long we have refused to accept the small creep with multiple limbs share their experiences with us more directly. That has now changed, thanks to the work of scientists changing the vibration-based perceptions of spiders in music.
Vice recently profiled the work of MIT engineering professor Markus Buehler, who leads a team that turns web vibrations into sounds we can actually hear. The project uses “the physics of spider webs to assign audible tones to the unique tension and vibration of a particular string” through a process called data sonication. The resulting models can be explored through virtual reality software or listened to via samples recorded by Buehler and his collaborator Thomas SaracenoThe music made manipulating the models is incredible – an uncanny approach to how spiders understand their environment.
Buehler says the goal of the project is both to “expand how we generate sound in music and how we compose music” and to practically demonstrate how “for something like a spider, there is a very different way of seeing the world to experience.
Researchers say the project could eventually be used to reverse engineer the reality of spiders and communicate with the arachnids, ” Vice explains somewhat ominously. Buehler explains, saying he plans to play and measure AI-generated spider sounds for the creatures [their] reactions. “
Read to learn more about Markus Buehler and the Earth’s Spiders the full article or check out Buehler’s YouTube channel hereIn the meantime, we’ll just sit there and wait for the day when we can finally communicate with the spiders and propose an alliance with them against our mutual enemy: the mosquito.
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