'A Hydrogen Daydream' is a new immersive sonic exploration of the climate emergency from the perspective of hydrogen itself. It asks humans working in innovation to think about what they could learn from the elements - particularly hydrogen that does not conform, that flows through, and sees everything. It pushes for the need to shift perspectives around natural resources being perceived as collaborators in innovation. This nods to new ways to embed inclusive design for both nature and humans when shaping the future. 

All of the sounds composed are created and inspired using the drone sounds of hydrogen being tested on diesel engines at Brunel University. It incorporates sounds of nature at risk in local areas including the heavily polluted Little Britain Lake, a body of water in which hydrogen lies within. The compositions are created when entering elemental flow-state in collaboration with these hydrogen drones and sounds of nature. 

The spatial audio rig has been created to foster a flow-space for collaboration with nature and humans across sectors at a time of siloed-thinking. It is crafted from different discarded materials that were going to go to waste.

With thanks to human collaborators

Seb O’ Connor, Ecological Economist

Dr Shona Koren Paterson, Director of Global Lives Research Centre

Zahra Hdidou, Climate Policy Advisor

Professor Xinyan Wang, Centre of Advanced Powertrain and Fuels

Dr Princewill Ikpeka, Lecturer in Global Challenges

Andy Franzkowiak, Orleans House Gallery

And non-human collaborators collected from water offices

Hydrogen combustion drones, Brunel University

Birds, Polluted Little Britain Lake

This project is part of a growing mission to encourage nature-human collaborations through elemental thinking and flow-state. It has now formed into the organisation Sounding Ground. Its inception was made possible thanks to Arts Council England, Brunel University, VOICE Horizon Europe.

how’s that future?

N E U R O D I V E R G E N C E, FLOW & T H E C L I M A T E E M E R G E N C Y

I think sideways. And sprawling. And ten thoughts at once with a soundtrack behind them. A restless underlay of musings passed by baton between a network of thoughts, fermenting and fizzing behind this plain face facade like the scurry of ants building a kingdom under an oblivious park bench. Sometimes, the curtain catches on a missing link and fails to close completely, revealing a world unknown as the mask slips and people glimpse in with mild confusion. A leg shakes uncontrollably to the rhythm of the thinking, hands play the table like it's a piano, and people nudge me as I zone out of a drying conversation.

These thoughts are profound, but fleeting. They fly so quickly through my body and out, I lose them as I try to reach and hold on. As I do, another thought zooms in with such tenacity I feel the last one fade into oblivion as I latch onto this new one with equal excitement. They don't necessarily make sense, they need dismantling and analysing, they need space to fester. Like gargantuan cruise ships passing in a smog filled night, they are abstract and absurd.

But for you, I want to try to catch them. I want to try to explain.

Because here, in this moment, I was given the gift to ponder. To sit with thoughts around a 2024 that feels equally absurd. A 2024 that pleads with humans for the need to think. To see with eagle eyes the bigger picture. To climb out of siloes to face this intersection of polycrises. This transition between past and future, where a climate emergency, pollution and biodiversity loss are trapped between a rapidity and an unnoticing that tells troubling tales of signs to come.

We should meet this absurdity with our own nonsense.

With exploration. With play. With neurodivergence.

Because bringing brains of all kinds together to think differently can challenge this falling apart. How we move forwards at this pivotal moment, what trepidus steps we choose to take, will impact the rest of time. And whilst we teeter in this balance between destruction and innovation, we must include as many voices as we can.

So herein this project lies my daydream around the climate emergency, powered by hydrogen research. A sprawling of thoughts, tangents, kernels of ideas that have been gifted this small time to grow. Welcome to the inner workings of a brain meeting a confused world with its own bafflement. Bear with me as we explore some thinking which has been brushed off from a cobwebbed corner and festered like organic matter into debris to rise like sprawling mycelium alight with ideas of what. could. be? These flowing thoughts will take us to some unexpected places, that might not quite make sense, that might need a soundtrack or to be read upside down or over a drone note. Because, I don't believe in doing things by the book. We need to think sideways when we need change.

Like our actions in an intersectional world should be,

we have to be interdisciplinary.

About the Video

The video shows an improvised jam with Hydrogen where we enter flow state;

This is a prototype of interconnectedness through visuals that show hydrogen combusting in a diesel engine. This responds based on the sounds of the piano so we play together. The footage was taken by engineers testing hydrogen at Brunel and combines with the nearby sounds of birds collected from the heavily polluted Little Britain Lake.