Web Audio and ESP32, Sound art and tangible real-time interaction via network, "Music for Elements" ecology and intermediality

This article presents a research and creation project entitled “Music for Elements”, a connected sound itinerary whose ecological issues question the practice of intermedia sound art and IoT technologies as a means of reconciling city dwellers with the city and ecology. Inspired by biomimicry and DIY design, the idea is to implement a web audio application on an ESP32 microcontroller configured as a Wi-Fi access server, in order to sonify data from an urban ecosystem in real time via a WebSocket server. Light intensity, water movement, water level and temperature, ambient noise level, air temperature and quality, soil moisture and wind strength are all environmental factors that measure the ecological impact of humans on their environment and highlight the presence of life in urban areas. In a sensitive approach, the data collected by these devices represent information and variables that can influence the creative process of a sound work, as real-time composition parameters. These processes of technological interaction within an artistic device would make it possible to recreate the link between humans and living beings. The project is presented as a prototype and is currently under development. Initial experiments have yielded convincing results thanks to the use of biomimicry process and WebSocket technology for real-time sound interaction with the environment.