The Scaffolded Sound Beehive

The Scaffolded Sound Beehive is an immersive multi-media installation which provides viewers an artistic visual and audio experience of activities in a beehive. Data were recorded in urban beehives and processed using sophisticated pattern recognition, AI technologies, and sonification and computer graphics software. The installation includes an experiment in using Deep Learning to interpret the activities in the hive based on sound and microclimate recording. 1 Description of the work This paper describes an artistic installation, shown in the IJCAI-2015 exhibition, centering around the theme of bee monitoring. The centerpiece of the installation is the top of a Warré beehive constructed using open source digital fabrication and mounted on scaffolds. A Warré hive is a sustainable beehive originally designed by the Warré around 1920. The hive is 2.5 m high so that visitors can put their head inside it and experience a visual and auditory artistic interpretation of hive activity, making this an interactive immersive installation. The Scaffolded Hive will be a very visible beautiful landmark (Figure 1). Three further components are added: 1. An 8-channel sound installation plays continuously inside the hive. This sound installation is based on recordings of actual bee and environmental sounds in the broodnest of an urban beehive installed on the roof top of the Brussels Urban Bee Laboratory for a complete season (Fig. 2, right). It started with recordings on June 21st 2014, the longest day/shortest night, processed using sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms, and artificial intelligence analysis software, and edited into a 15 minute-piece using Max/MSP by adding swirling electronic sound clusters to sonify the increase and decrease of swarm activity in the hive. 2. A video shows 365 days of activity inside a real observation beehive, played back at higher speed. The images were recorded with an infrared camera inside the hive (Fig. 2, left) and processed using pattern recognition, AI and computer graphics algorithms (Fig. 3). These Figure 1: Left. Physical Warré-hive. Right: 3d Model (constructed with Blender) of the Scaffolded Warré hive. The Scaffoled Hive will be digitally fabricated based on this design. images give a stunning visual experience of a colony in action. 3. A second video shows a graphical rendering of AI analysis of colony behavior combining real audio data with measurements of microclimate inside the hive: temperature, CO2 and humidity and using DEEP LEARNING to detect patterns in the data (Fig. 4). 2 Artistic goals and production The Scaffolded Sound Beehive is part of a series of ecological instrumented beehives leading towards a fully biocompatible intelligent beehive [Maes, 2013]. These beehives allow me to study the tight interaction between city honeybees and urban ecosystems, using artistic research practices and in collaboration with scientists. My preoccupations with bees come partly from a fascination with these amazing insects: Bees exhibit Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2015)