In our research project trees: Rendering Ecophysiologi-cal Processes Audible, we are working on the acoustic recording, analysis and representation of ecophysiologi-cal processes in plants and studying the acoustic and aesthetic requirements for making them perceptible. Measurements of acoustic emissions in plants are only interpretable in relation to climatic and physiological dynamics such as microclimatic conditions, sap flow and changes in trunk radius and water potential within the plants—all measurement data that is not auditory per se. Therefore, our work involves analysing the acoustic emissions mathematically, on one hand, and sonifying ecophysiological data on the other. How can phenomena that are beyond our normal perception be made directly observable, creating new experiences and opening a new window on the processes of nature? The sound installation trees: Downy Oak, exhibited at swissnex in San Francisco in summer 2012, is a first approach to a spatial audio sonification and research system. Our experiments show that immediate and intuitive access to measurement data through sounds and their spatial positioning is very promising in terms of new forms of data display as well as generative art works.

Since its creation by the composer Brian Eno in 1976, the term ambient has undergone significant change. The musical style ambient has developed into a framework of reception and terminology within which digital electronic music as well as visual art are conceived and received. The term ambient opens up a context of artistic and social practices reflecting a reality that is increasingly transported via and created by media technologies. Using as point of departure biologist Jakob von Uexküll's concept of »Umwelt« which postulates a world-generating context of body, cognition and environment, modern constructions of immanence are examined: Ambient as a sort of mimetic ceremony produces extremely complex yet coherent images of the world. The study develops a phe-nomenology of the sounds found in current ambient music as well as associations and meanings elicited by them. Ambient is a compound of spaces in which a reflection of the world takes place, created through artistic, social, geographical and increasingly virtual devices. The idea of space as the expansion of thought, enclosing its infinite movements as an absolute horizon is implied by the concept of the plane of immanence proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In Ambient, a soundtrack of immanence is created, a polyphonic sound of the environment as we experience it, which renders the world in its diversity imaginable and experienceable.

On an invitation by French President François Hollande,
who visited the Zurich University of the Arts ZhdK in
April 2015 and who was spontaneously excited about our
research on the ecophysiological relationship between
acoustic emissions of trees and local climatic conditions
in the Swiss Alps, we are very proud to present our
artistic-scientific observation system «trees: Pinus
sylvestris» at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change
Conference COP21. The installation is the result from
our research project «trees: Rendering Ecophysiological
Processes audible», a cooperation between the Institute
for Computer Music and Sound Technology of the Zurich
University of the Arts ZHdK and the Swiss Federal
Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL,
funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Praxis sind sich in den letzten Jahren nicht nur näher gekommen; an den europäischen Kunsthochschulen etabliert sich ein neuer Forschungsbereich, die Künstlerische Forschung. Im Zuge der Akademisierung der Kunstausbildung (Bachelor, Master, PhD im Rahmen der Bologna-Reform) müssen die Kunsthochschulen Forschung betreiben und formulieren, welches Wissen in der neuen Forschungsstruktur wie generiert und vermittelt werden soll. Da über Computer- und Medientechnologien zur Zeit einige Gebietsüberschneidungen von Wissenschaft und Kunst bezüglich ihrer Methoden und medialen Formen der Wirklichkeitsherstellung offenbar werden, lassen sich gewisse Grundcharakteristika der Künstlerischen Forschung quasi am „lebenden Objekt“ der künstlerisch-wissenschaftlichen Forschungsgegenstände explizieren. Zudem soll die Schilderung zweier Forschungsprojekte an der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste aufzeigen, wo die Potentiale und Perspektiven der Künstlerischen Forschung ...

In our research project «trees: Rendering eco-physiological processes audible» we connected acoustic emissions of plants with ecophysiological processes and rendered audible natural phenomena that aren't normally noticeable in an artistic way. The acoustic emissions of a tree in the Swiss Alps were recorded with special sensors, and all other non-auditory ecophysiological measurement data (e.g. the trunk and branch diameters that change depending on water content, the sap flow rate in the branches, the water present in the soil, air moisture, solar radiation, etc.) were sonified, i.e. translated into sounds. The recordings and sonified measurements were implemented in a number of different media art installations, which at the same time served as a research environment, in order to examine and experiment artistically with the temporal and spatial connections between plant sounds, physiological processes and environmental conditions in an artistic-scientific observation system.

The interdisciplinary Sounding Soil project explores the soil’s soundscape and renders experienceable and investigable the activity and diversity of soil life in an artistic-acoustic observatory. The main aim is to increase soil awareness in the general population as well as among decision-makers involved in soil policies and food producers. While moving through or digging the soil matrix, the soil fauna produces noises. Moreover, some animals seem to use the soil as a communication medium, forming a complex soundscape. Land use and agricultural management may have marked effects on the soil soundscape. Thus, the (acoustic) richness of a local soil animal community may serve as an indicator of the functioning of a soil ecosystem. In the scientific module of the Sounding Soil project, we implement and test acoustic indices to assess soil biodiversity and community composition. In the art and citizen science module, several Swiss farmers and subsequently the broader public record the soundscapes of their soils with a low-cost recording device. The result is a sound art installation as a publicly accessible observatory, integrating our scientific findings with recordings by participants in the citizen science module. This article describes the character of soil soundscapes in agricultural land and forests and reports on our research design and first insights into the relations between land use, soil types, biodiversity, and soil soundscapes.

The observation and assessment of animal biodiversity using acoustic technology has developed considerably in recent years. Current eco-acoustic research focuses on automatic audio recorder arrays and acoustic indices, which may be used to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of local animal communities in high resolution. While such soundscapes have often been studied above ground, their applicability in soils has rarely been tested. For the first time, we applied acoustic and statistical methods to explore the spatial, diurnal, and seasonal dynamics of the soundscape in soils. We studied the dynamics of acoustic complexity in forest soils in the alpine Pfynwald forest in the Swiss canton of Valais and related them to meteorological and microclimatic data. To increase microclimatic variability, we used a long-term irrigation experiment. We also took soil samples close to the sensors on 6 days in different seasons. Daily and seasonal patterns of acoustic complexity were predicted to be associated with abiotic parameters—that is, meteorological and microclimatic conditions—and mediated by the dynamics of the diversity and activity of the soil fauna. Seasonal patterns in acoustic complexity showed the highest acoustic complexity values in spring and summer, decreasing in fall and winter. Diurnal acoustic complexity values were highest in the afternoon and lowest during the night. The measurement of acoustic diversity at the sampling site was significantly associated with soil communities, with relationships between taxa richness or community composition and acoustic complexity being strongest shortly before taking the soil samples. Our results suggest that the temporal and spatial dynamics of the diversity and community composition of soil organisms can be predicted by the acoustic complexity of soil soundscapes. This opens up the possibility of using soil soundscape analysis as a noninvasive and easy-to-use method for soil biodiversity monitoring programs.

The TreeNet research and monitoring network has been continuously collecting data from point dendrometers and air and soil microclimate using an automated system since 2011. The goal of TreeNet is to generate high temporal resolution datasets of tree growth and tree water dynamics for research and to provide near real-time indicators of forest growth performance and drought stress to a wide audience. This paper explains the key working steps from the installation of sensors in the field to data acquisition, data transmission, data processing, and online visualization. Moreover, we discuss the underlying premises to convert dynamic stem size changes into relevant biological information. Every 10 min, the stem radii of about 420 trees from 13 species at 61 sites in Switzerland are measured electronically with micrometer precision, in parallel with the environmental conditions above and below ground. The data are automatically transmitted, processed and stored on a central server. Auto...

Die Debatte, ob das Erkennen der Welt sich auf rein kognitiver Ebene abspielt oder sich auf natürliche, das heißt auf physikalische und körperliche Strukturen und Funktionen reduzieren lässt, hat nichts an Aktualität eingebüsst. Jüngere Diskurse zu Theorien und Befunden der Kognitionswissenschaften  scheinen sich an der alten Frage zu scheiden, ob sich Gedanken auf Materie reduzieren lassen oder ob sich für die Erkenntnis der Welt, also für Strukturen und Prozesse des Wahrnehmens, Denkens und Verstehens andere Kategorien der wissenschaftlichen Erklärung finden lassen müssen. Ob sich die menschliche Erkenntnisfähigkeit über rein mentale Strukturen, die vor jeglicher Erfahrung (a priori) liegen, erklären lässt, oder ob diese Strukturen lediglich in einem biologischen/physiologischen (und somit in einem empirischen, a posteriorischen) Zusammenhang beschrieben und erklärt werden können, lässt sich anhand des Diskurses um transzendentale und naturalisierte Erkenntnistheorie philosophisch untersuchen. Prototypisch wurden diese beiden Ansätze von Immanuel Kant und Willard Van Orman Quine vertreten. Das Thema ist insofern auch interessant, weil seine Verhandlung sich auf verschiedene Gebiete der theoretischen Philosophie erstreckt: Auf die Philosophie des Geistes und der Sprache (vor allem des englischsprachigen Raums), Metaphysik und Ontologie, und insbesondere die Epistemologie.

"Metaverse", a word coined by Neal Stephenson in his book "Snow Crash", 1 is now a buzzword in tech and business. The metaverse is envisioned to contain simulated spaces that allow for interactions in an immersive way; a world enabled by virtual or augmented reality technologies. It represents a likely next stage in the development of the Internet, leading to an increasing convergence of the physical and the virtual world. According to voices in the gaming industry we already have "proto-metaverses", 2 and tech giants project that, within a decade, key features enabling the metaverse will be available. 3 This development will likely have broad impacts on our lives, with much currently written about the technological, social, and commercial ramifications, with a focus on gaming and social networks. Avoiding further biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems are central topics of our time 4 ; therefore, we here open the discussion on what the metaverse could mean for the environment and biodiversity, and how the community of

Sounding Soil is an inter- and transdisciplinary research and art project that explores the acoustics of faunal soil life. In the project, technologies and methods have been developed to investigate ecoacoustic parameters in soil ecosystems and to make them experienceable for an extra-scientific public. In the ecological part of the project, acoustic technologies and measurements were shown to help in assessing the diversity and activity of a local soil fauna: Acoustic complexity is related to and capable of reflecting biodiversity. The dynamics of acoustic complexity and activity are further directly related to microclimatic dynamics in soil ecosystems, both diurnal and seasonal. Possible indications for effects of human/agricultural land use were found: Depending on the intensity of agricultural management, acoustic complexity in soils seems to differ, but more research needs to be done in this regard. In the artistic part of the project, various sound installations were developed and exhibited. These were set up as soil observatories and integrated the public—especially in the installation Sounding Soil—into the research and art process as a Citizen Science sub-project, by providing specially developed recording devices to be borrowed to record one’s own soil at home. In the development of the art installations, the goal was to create liminal spaces in which situated environmental experiences can be made possible through the sounds from soils, thus initiating processes of sensitization toward soil ecosystems in the population. In a theoretical synthesis, the domains of science, art, and society are brought into a trans- and interdisciplinary framework of meaning and participation, with low hierarchies of knowledge and jointly elaborated approaches to the natural world. These assemblages can be described as a communicative nexus realized in media artworks and ecoacoustic observatories. Here, the potentials of transdisciplinary science and art projects become apparent: Holistic and aesthetic perspectives on research objects point to possible new researcher as well as artist identities and reveal a range of new research topics and methods, as well as artistic practices.

Automated glycan assembly (AGA) enables rapid access to oligo-saccharides. The overall length of polymers created via automated solid phase synthesis depends on very high yields at every step to obtain full length products. The synthesis of long polymers serves as the ultimate test of the efficiency and reliability of synthetic processes. A series of Man-(1-6)-a-Man linked oligosaccharides up to a 50mer, the longest synthetic sequence yet assembled from monosaccharides, has been realized via a 102 step synthesis. We identified a suitable mannose building block and applied a capping step in the final five AGA cycles to minimize (n À 1) deletion sequences that are otherwise difficult to remove by HPLC.

Spatiotemporal orchestration of gene expression is required for proper embryonic development. The use of single-cell technologies has begun to provide improved resolution of early regulatory dynamics, including detailed molecular definitions of most cell states during mouse embryogenesis. Here we used Slide-seq to build spatial transcriptomic maps of complete embryonic day (E) 8.5 and E9.0, and partial E9.5 embryos. To support their utility, we developed sc3D, a tool for reconstructing and exploring three-dimensional ‘virtual embryos’, which enables the quantitative investigation of regionalized gene expression patterns. Our measurements along the main embryonic axes of the developing neural tube revealed several previously unannotated genes with distinct spatial patterns. We also characterized the conflicting transcriptional identity of ‘ectopic’ neural tubes that emerge in Tbx6 mutant embryos. Taken together, we present an experimental and computational framework for the spatiotem...