Stefana Fratila is a Romanian-born composer, sound artist and writer based in Toronto, Canada. She recently finished her Master’s in Political Science at the University of British Columbia.
Lately, as a composer, performer, and sound artist, Stefana has felt driven by a complex question: “If each planet in our solar system were a different room, what would each room sound like?” She is undertaking a research project that will culminate in eight atmospheric sound art compositions as well as eight VST plug-ins created for digital audio workstation (DAWs) that, together, will consider her question and examine how sound waves might be perceived by human ears as they travel through the atmospheres of our solar system.
Each sound piece will focus on a different planet, giving the listener an approximate snapshot of the atmospheric sounds of each respective planet. The plug-ins will allow electronic/media artists, producers, musicians and composers to control an effect that emulates what an instrument or audio sample would sound like if it were played or heard on a another planet. Given the limited available research on this topic, Stefana's project will aim to showcase the unexplored areas of sound and space by sparking interest within both the artistic and scientific communities.
Al Smith is a musician, programmer, and lawyer in Vancouver, Canada, and is thrilled to be assisting Stefana on the technical aspects of this project -- mainly C++ and the Steinberg VST3 SDK as they relate to digital signal processing. His other projects include a (minimally) artificially intelligent companion robot for his cat, a system for converting raster graphics to Fourier-transformed sonic vectors which can be displayed on an oscilloscope via a microphone input, and a variety of effects pedals, synthesizers, and other electronic projects.