Contents
“Faraway servers conceal the materiality of this electronic brain and depict agility in its responses, whether narrated in scarlet, disembodied voices, or formally prosaic text. The wizardry of computer technology distances users from the environmental costs of each mundane question, humorless pun, silly query, and frivolous command made for self-amusement.
— Andre Vinicius Leal Sobral, Artificial or Natural Intelligence, Reimagining AI for Environmental Justice and Creativity
Nevertheless, artificiality leaks out of the genie’s lamps into our digital spaces, producing informational junk that floods search queries, messaging apps, and social networks – much like oil spills do with natural environments, causing direct damage to users and transforming these spaces into dark reflections of their former purposes.”
We have collectively muted the internet
Almost every online interaction today is primed for maximum conversion, every pixel vying for attention. At any given time, we are juggling a flurry of demands: Look at me! Click me! Consume me! So we try to escape. We turn on Do Not Disturb, install ad-blockers and drown our anxiety in an infinite feed of nonsense. We’ve muted the internet but it’s still too god damned loud.
In a state of constant overstimulation, the only way to cope is to disassociate, but in doing so we sever our relationship with reality. Each new fangled technology, hype cycle, and ad creates an artificial need for yet more machinery, more surveillance, more consumption. In 2022, we generated 62 million tons of e-waste globally – how many of them are devices that are perfectly usable?
We are able to want more progress at all costs precisely because those costs are not immediate, and often the consequences are not borne by those of us living in the Global North. (For a visual explanation, check out E-waste in Ghana: Tracing Transboundary Flows for the 13th edition of the Carmignac photojournalism award.)
The grid is nature is the grid
What powers our digital world exists in the physical world, it is material, subject to gravity, rain and sunlight. We often think of the grid as an endless supply of on-demand energy, but in reality it’s a dynamic blend of fossil fuels and renewables.
The Green Web Foundation’s toolkit for grid-aware websites allows sites to adapt to the carbon intensity of the grid, suggesting to display high-resolution images when renewable energy is abundant and switching to low-res or even no images when the grid is running on fossil fuels. Branch (where you’re reading this) is a great example, with the background color changing according to real-time data.
But what if we could listen to the grid?
Alternative modals for a sensory experience
Attunement asks to be felt. Being attuned to nature means sensing the rain before it falls, by the scent in the air and the weight of the sky. Attunement for digital will require alternative sensory modalities beyond visuals.
Sound has long been used for observation and monitoring in highly technical fields, just as it has been used to help artists communicate the materiality of computing. The versatility of sound makes it a compelling candidate to convey the rhythms of the grid – an energy system deeply entangled with the natural world.
Several interesting approaches have inspired this idea:
- NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
- Michael Fell’s sonification of UK national electricity use
- Tom Armitage’s design exploration of sonifying Gridshare’s energy data
- and Lisa Koeman’s exploration to represent non-linear journeys in research.
All projects vary in approach from direct 1:1 mapping to more dynamic scoring for storytelling.
The possibilities are endless! In the context of grid awareness, would a high carbon intensity be signified by a loud, bass sound? Or a dissonant screech? How do we balance between alerting readers that they are drawing from an already carbon-intense grid with inviting them to view the grid with curiosity?
Sound exploration
Each decision carries weight. A bright tone might suggest hope, but our world is layered and complex – every ray of sunlight casts a shadow.
To explore how sound might help us attune to the grid, I chose to sonify four days from 2024 in the Netherlands, one for each season. Despite being ideally located for the generation of wind energy, the Netherlands – like all countries producing wind power – still relies on fossil fuels to start the turbines. This tension between promise and reality was important to capture.
I translated two key metrics into sound: the life carbon intensity lifecycle (measured in gCO₂eq/kWh) and percentage of renewable energy (RE%). Carbon intensity is represented by the double bass and forms the foundation of each track – lower notes reflect dirtier grid electricity. As the grid becomes more intense, the pace shifts from a steady rhythm to more urgent beats. In contrast, the percentage of renewables is carried by bright marimba patterns: the higher and more complex the melody, the cleaner the energy mix.
Listen.
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
One unexpected finding was that, in 2024, the Netherlands had its lowest grid intensity in winter – resulting in a steadier, less variable composition. Spring and summer brought sharper contrasts: Midday was characterized by a brighter sparkle of renewable energy mix, while night and early morning sank into a heavy bass.
It’s one thing to read these numbers in a spreadsheet or graph, another entirely to hear them come to life.
Listening as climate action
The energy grid is not an abstract system – it’s woven into the fabric of our material world. It reflects a constant negotiation between human demands and the limits of nature’s capacity, a balance we’re increasingly disturbing through avoidance or ignorance. Attunement is feeling that strain and letting that lived experience guide your actions.
What do you hear when you listen to the grid?
Acknowledgements
A big shoutout goes to the Branch team for their guidance and generous knowledge-sharing, to Electricity Maps for providing access to the datasets and creating such a great tool, and to TwoTone for relieving me of the need to write the sonification code myself. A special shoutout to Matt Webb for early chats and boundless enthusiasm over the internet.
Alexis Oh is a designer working on climate. She is the curator for Rosenfeld Media’s Climate UX group and teaches at the UX Design Institute. Alexis currently works as a Senior Product UX Designer at IKEA and internally co-organises the Digital Sustainability movement to build awareness, empower and promote climate action.