How Should the Future Sound?
An interactive museum installation that sonifies climate futures — visitors turn physical dials to explore how policy decisions shape the sound of the year 2100.
How Should the Future Sound? is an interactive music installation at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC. Visitors manipulate physical dials to adjust climate policy variables — energy, transportation, land use, industry — and hear how those decisions change the sonic character of the year 2100.
The installation uses data from En-ROADS, a climate simulator developed by Climate Interactive, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems. As visitors turn the controls, the music responds in real time: soothing harmonic tones and consonant textures represent sustainable climate futures, while harsher sounds, dissonances, and noise indicate a need to change course. The projected display, developed by RLMG, shows the state of the world in 2100 across six dimensions — life, sea level, forests, heat, air quality — updating as the dials move.
The piece asks visitors to listen to the consequences of collective decision-making, translating abstract simulation data into an embodied, affective experience. It is bilingual (English/Spanish) and designed for all ages.
Exhibition & Performance History
- Museum of Life and Science, Durham, NC — 2026–present