What does the world sound like to a tree?

I'm a lecturer and researcher in the School of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London. I'm project lead on UKRI’s Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Design Accelerator, Reperceiving Communities: Prototyping the More-than-Human Community Toolkit.

We're prototyping the More-than-Human Community Toolkit, which is an open-source public engagement toolkit that uses low-cost imaging and audio technologies. The aim is to empower communities to be agents for pro-environmental and pro-social change.

The project has two parallel outcomes. The first, There's Something in the Water, attempts to understand more-than-human behaviour through film noir tropes. We created a device called the Aquatron, a customised microscope with an integrated pump. You pump the handle to draw pond or river life out of the water, so that they can be seen under the microscope. Participants are cast as river detectives; they wear fedoras and detective badges and carry leather-bound sketchbooks. The activity is a ruse to turn children into citizen scientists and draw attention to the way that we project human characteristics and fictions onto more-than-human species.

The work raises questions about the relationships among species living in aquatic ecosystems, and the broader issue of climate change. For example, we know algal species will proliferate into algal blooms that can suck all the oxygen out of the water and cause temperature changes. The aim was to create an activity that would help children explore these complexities.

We started with a question: what does the world sound like to a tree? To find out, we developed a range of 3D-printed tools, that extend the capabilities of off-the-shelf microphones and field-recording equipment.  

We use a field recorder with six microphone inputs. Contact microphones are pressed against the bark of the tree, hydrophones float on the water or are submerged around the roots, and geophones are embedded in the soil or placed in cracks in the branches to listen to the creaks from within the tree. The aim is to capture the vibrations within, beneath, and around the tree. 

We call the person operating the field recorder the Tree Jay. They are responsible for adjusting the volume levels in real time. For instance, if a train passes in the background, they can reduce its volume so it doesn't drown out the other sounds. We try to minimise how much we interfere with the audio experience. 

Participants wear wireless headphones to experience the sounds captured by the microphone array. Put simply, we have created an immersive audio experience that aims to help people understand the ecosystem the tree is entangled within, while encouraging them to reflect on – and empathise with – the tree’s role within it. 

We write audio scores to help listeners, over a couple of minutes, attune to the soundscape, listening above, listening below, and listening within. The aim is to orient yourself within the soundscape to something that you can, not just hear, but make sense of. From there, the listener can identify more abstract sounds.  

Last summer, we took the kit to France on a research field trip with the Design Societies Research Unit. One participant described the experience as being like gaining superhuman hearing: the moment you removed the headphones, your hearing felt tuned in, and you could continue to notice sounds that you had experienced through the headphones, even though 20 minutes earlier you hadn’t been aware of them at all. It’s about focusing attention and shifting how we listen to the world around us. 

In Brookmill Park in Deptford, there is a willow tree beside the Ravensbourne River that we became quite obsessed with. One of its branches leans against a footbridge that crosses the river before continuing over the DLR line just beyond. The moment someone walks across the footbridge, or when the branches move in the breeze, you can hear the tree creaking through a geophone. Through the hydrophone, floating on the river beneath the bridge, you can hear water moving around the tree’s roots and objects falling into the river. Atmospheric sounds are picked up by the condenser microphones. Using an Antiradio, you can hear radio waves and, occasionally, telephone calls passing through the tree itself – the tree acts as a mast. I find that moment quite profound because it reveals how human activity penetrates and interacts with the tree.

We’ve worked closely with Ed Baker and Victoria Burton from the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Nature at the Natural History Museum. Ed is heavily involved in the Nature Discovery Garden at the Natural History Museum, where a sensor array has been installed beneath the gardens to record local nature; anything from DNA sampling to bioacoustics audio to temperature sensing. They are monitoring urban nature as it exists in the garden and across London more broadly. We’ve learned a great deal from Ed and Victoria, and our approaches have also prompted them to reflect on and consider new perspectives within their own work. The work we’ve created complements their approach because, rather than developing additional permanent installations within the garden, our focus is on public engagement. 

Partnering with Phoenix Community Housing helped us connect with Lewisham residents. Phoenix is a resident-led housing association based in Lewisham with an active year-round programme of community activities. We were invited to take part in Summer Fun, a three-week series of family-friendly events held every Thursday in parks across the borough. This enabled us to connect with people who, unlike the Natural History Museum’s typical audience, may not already be engaged with nature. It also provided an excellent opportunity to test the equipment and learn from visitors’ experiences. 

More recently, we became aware of the concept of nature connectedness: how we think, feel, and engage with the more-than-human world. There is a growing understanding that nature connectedness is important because empathising with more-than-humans can help us respond to climate change and biodiversity loss, while also supporting our own health and wellbeing. 

In essence, we have designed tools and activities that support nature connectedness. In places like Lewisham, social and economic inequalities can create divisions between those who do and do not have access to green space. There is a need for more inclusive creative strategies that make experiences of nature tangible and locally relevant. 

When considering how to connect communities with local nature, we looked at the Great Trees of London Map. One of the few remaining mature elm trees in London is located in Ladywell Fields Park. Many elm trees were lost in the 1960s due to Dutch Elm Disease, making this surviving tree something of a local celebrity. These kinds of stories provide opportunities to spark curiosity about urban ecosystems through our toolkit. 

We’ve just released the MTH-CTK Manual, which brings together a mixture of short texts, essays, and reflections on the research so far. It includes an equipment list detailing all the hardware we’ve used, and pages explaining the tools and attachments we’ve designed, with direct links to download and 3D-print them. Ultimately, our aim is for people to be able to Listen Like a Tree for themselves. 

We need to build a UK-wide network of partners, including local authorities, conservation organisations, and cultural organisations, to help us test and refine the kit across a range of contexts. This involves training community and environmental practitioners – such as teachers, youth workers, conservation officers, and engagement managers – to use the kit. Our hope is that this will lead to wider adoption and enable us to further develop the work. 

I have a six-and-a-half-year-old daughter who has attended many of our workshops. In fact, we held one at her primary school before Christmas. For her, it’s completely normal that Dad spends his time listening like a tree. How might we take this a step further? Within Key Stage 1 learning, we believe these tools can help foster eco-citizenship among the next generation. By connecting with local authorities and school networks, we hope to road-test the kit and roll it out to a wider range of schools. We’re unlikely to train every teacher or staff member, but we could train one or two individuals to champion the activity and deliver it within their school.