Jake Williams
Concept, Music
2050: The Pathway to Net Zero
In a world increasingly feeling the impacts of climate change, we decided to explore this vital issue through music. Our project was sparked by the bold roadmap created by the IEA, envisioning a path to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions in the energy sector by 2050.
In the midst of conversations permeated with environmental concerns, we feel like a hopeful and actionable vision for our collective future is crucial. While the foreboding specter of climate change is undeniably present, we chose to direct our focus towards a solution. Our aim was to convey an enthusiastic sense of optimism, firmly rooted in the opportunities envisioned by the IEA.
We used “data sonification” to represent the IEA’s plan.
Data sonification is the process of representing data with sound. Similar to data visualization which presents data visually, data sonification uses sound to convey information from datasets. While data is typically communicated most objectively through visuals, sound is powerful for communicating information on an emotional level. We used this advantage of sound to create a piece that casts a positive vision for the transformation from our unsustainable present to a harmonious future.
The Data
The IEA, or International Energy Agency, is an autonomous intergovernmental organization established in 1974. The IEA's primary mission is to promote energy security among its member countries, which currently number 30, and to provide reliable and unbiased energy information and analysis.
Our data set comes from their Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap which includes global historical and projected data for their Net‐Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario.
The graph shows a transition from our current energy production which relies heavily on fossil fuels, to renewable energy like solar and wind.
The Sound
We created a piece of music that demonstrates this transition between our current day energy production and that of a net zero future. In the piece each mode of energy production is represented by an instrument playing a loop. The presence of each in the song matches the percentage of energy production in the data set over time. To provide additional contrast we included CO2 emissions projections as another data point.
We started by matching exact data values to parameters in the music. Then we made creative adjustments to capture how we thought the data should musically feel. Since perception of sound varies depending on many factors we knew that taking artistic liberty would be important in effectively transforming raw data into sound.
The Visual
We hold a deep appreciation for the synergy of sound and visuals, as the convergence of sight and hearing has the power to amplify both information and emotion beyond their individual capacities. To harness this potential, we reached out to our friend, Jake Williams, who generously lent his expertise to bring our music and data to life through beautiful motion graphics.
"I've always had a love for data and finding new ways to communicate it visually is definitely a fun challenge. With the IEA Net Zero 2050 graph as our north star, we landed on slices of a globe to represent each of the energy sources that would morph and change over the course of the piece.
The overall tone of the music and the data presented in the Net Zero 2050 plan presents a gradual change over time that will get us to a more hopeful place by 2050 and it's that gradual shift that we attempted to represent throughout the piece."
-Jake Williams, Motion Designer
Conclusion
As artists, this piece served as an opportunity for us to engage with information and discover creative inspiration in the process.
We love sound’s potential to evoke emotional responses in humans. Our hope is that we were able to present this data in a way that listeners find relatable and memorable and raise awareness and support for a crucial global endeavor.
