Listen to that server sing. The ambient hum of European data centres has been turned into electronic music. The first composition, based on machines at Birmingham City University in the UK, was .
Most data centres generate a kind of white noise from the whirring of many small fans cooling the servers. Their movement occurs at many different frequencies, resulting in a nearly full spectrum of sound. But each centre has a different number of fans spinning at different speeds, creating its own 鈥渦nique pitch,鈥� says , the freelance composer behind the music.
After recording each centre, Parker strips out any undesired background noise. He isolates different frequencies to build a harmonic scale, playing around with the different sounds as they unfold.
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In the long run, he hopes that the music will pique people鈥檚 interest in what happens to their digital data. Modern devices run quietly, making it easier to forget about the immense machinery required to make them work.
鈥淯ltimately, the information that we鈥檙e using on our mobile phones and things is being transferred somewhere else,鈥� Parker says. 鈥淚 wanted to find a way to make a reminder of the physical and mechanical nature of the cloud.鈥�
Parker plans to visit data centres in southern England and Sweden next.
鈥淚 want to create a whole body of work reflecting these different places and the sounds that they create,鈥� he says.
