Nov 21, Listening to Data
Parameter mapping
musical aesthetics
"Sonification is the data-dependent generation of sound, if the transformation is systematic, objective and reproducible"
Intentionality Matters
Scaletti et al 2018:
" purpose of data sonification as the discovery of something new about the original phenomenon that produced the data"
‘data-based music’, ‘data-based sound art’ or simply music to describe the ‘use of data as a component of artistic expression’
musification, defined as the representation of data through the musical interpretation of source processes or a course of events in the data ‘designed to go beyond direct sonification and include elements of tonality and the use of modal scales to create musical auralizations’
framing data sonification within musically stylistic forms can be one method of highlighting or framing familiarity and difference in data patterns - Gresham-Lancaster 2012
might be hard to listen to, but that's not the point
reductive, dismissive!
Varni et al: musification can have ‘narrative qualities that can convey … affective musical dimensions of valence and arousal’ as a basis for affective sonification.
using music material should be allowed in sonification, provided that the main goal is ‘to optimise efficiency of information communication’ and not ‘to be pleasant to hear or to arouse particular feelings for the participants’.
embracing elements of aesthetic representation, giving an audience a ‘sense’ of the underlying data, which is less about hard facts and ‘more how it might serve as a stimulant for curiosity’, may be an appropriate compromise (Neuhoff [Reference Neuhoff2019)
For some other methods
How do you deal with the problem of temporality?
For wednesday:
Find some data
Feed it into TwoTone
Think about how it ties into procedural generation
Think about what it might mean, historically
Parameters we can play with:
timbre,
key,
tempo,
...there's actually a lot!