Length:
52 min. x 3
Category:
nature, wildlife, science, computer and technology
Language:
English
Status:
creative (in Development)
The variety of sounds made by animals is complex. Biologists are still at the beginning to understand a meaning, while using rather low-end analysis software, due to poor funding.
Computer linguists, on the other side, have developed sophisticated analysis tools during the last decades. These can be adapted to whatever language. But also to animal language? To whales, elephants, or gray parrots? For this film – normally separate working scientific fields will team up to perform a research never seen before:
The film begins like an ordinary nature episode: Acoustic biologists follow untamed animals to record their communication in their natural surroundings. The key question stays – what do specific sounds mean?
Computer linguists analyze sounds differently: Their method is similar to decoding ancient languages. “Detect smallest repeating patterns, then their relations”. If such pattern is detected, a first key is found, which can be included into a decoding software.
The analysis process needs pleny of computational power. The resulting decoding software is small enough to fit on a laptop, which allows to follow now the animal communication for the first time in the wild, while using refined language-tools.
While they begin to detect “smallest fractures” – this film format opens up a new era of science enhanced nature film, while drawing us closer to an old dream of mankind… decoding of their language
[[http://www.anthro-media.com/projects/nature/03_pass.html]]