Julian Rohruber: Introducing Sonification Variables

More sc symposium live blogging

sonification

Objectivity is considered important in the sciences. The notions of this have changed quite a bit over the last 50 years, however. The old style of imaging has as much data as possible crammed in, like atlas maps. Mechanical reproduction subsequently becomes important - photos are objective. However, perception is somewhat unreliable. So now we have structural objectivity which uses logic + measurements.

We are data-centric.

What's the real source of a recording? The original recording? The performer? The score? The mind of the composer?

Sound can be just sound, or it can just be a way of conveying information or something in between. You need theory to understand collected data.

What do we notice when we listen that we wouldn't have noticed by looking? There needs to be collaboration. Sonification needs to integrate the theory.

In sonfication, time must be scaled. There is a sonification operator that does something with maths. Now there are some formulas on his slide, but no audio examples.

Waveshaping is applying one function to another.

Theoretical physics. (SuperCollider for SuperColliders.) Particles accelerate and a few of them crash. Electrons and protons in this example. There's a diagram with squiggly lines. Virtual photons are emitted backwards in time? And interacts with a proton? And something changes colour. There's a theory or something called BFKL.

He's showing an application that's showing an equation and has a slider, and does something with the theory, so you can hear how the function would be graphed. Quantum Mechanics is now thinking about frequencies. Also, this is a very nice sounding equation

Did this enable discover anything? No, but it changed the conceptualisation of the theory, very slightly.

apparently, the scientists are also seeking beauty with sonification, so they involve artists to get that?

(I may be slightly misunderstanding this, I was at the club event until very late last night (this morning, actually).)

Ron Kuivila is saying something meaningful. Something about temporality, metaphilosophics, enumeration of state. Sound allows us to hear proportions w great precision, he says. There may be more interesting dynamical systems. Now about linguistics and mathematics and how linguistics help you understand equations and this is like Red Bird by Trevor Wishart.

Sound is therefore a formalisation.