Presenter: Rose Shepherd and Chris Harrison
Theme: Creative Engagement
Reporter: Helen Featherstone
One sentence summary: Interactive workshop that demonstrated and discussed the concept of sonification of data.
Description
This workshop demonstrated and discussed the concept of sonification. Sonification is a process of taking data and presenting it as non-speech audio (rather than visually). There are two main ways of doing this:
- Using existing wave forms and make them audible eg gravitational waves
- Using parameters: eg using the parameter of brighter light which results in a higher pitched sound
Chris and Rose have been developing tools for sonification of space data and have been working with Blind and Visually Impaired People (BVIP) to develop a show for planetaria: Audio Universe Tour of the Solar System. From this work, and by testing with BVIP and non-BVIP, they have found that sonification is an inclusive and accessible way of presenting data. There is an evaluation report available to read.
While the audience research was positive, the planetarium presenters wanted more flexibility so Chris and Rose are currently working with Digistar (a company that provides software to planetaria) and several planetaria to learn how to help planateria staff integrate sonification into everyday practice. They are using participatory action research to do this as they have found that not everyone will have the same associations with the sound.
This inconsistency was highlighted at the beginning of the workshop when people were invited to use up to five words to describe a sound. The sounds were later revealed to be stellar light curve data. Another example was played which illustrated global temperature data and how it’s changed over time due to climate change. The sound generated a very strong emotional response. It became very ominous as it got closer to the present day which everyone felt was appropriate.
There were two discussions in this workshop:
- Opportunities and challenges of using sonification in outreach and public engagement activities
- Coming up with an idea of how to use sonification
Notes from the discussions were made on paper. In the first discussion people noted that it was important to get the tone right as you don’t want to portray the wrong message (participants noted how well the climate change example worked); the emotional response that sonification can cause was highlighted both as a benefit and a challenge of sonification; there were conversations about the need to use devices and if that was inclusive; it was felt it could be isolating because you can’t talk, but others noted that active listening meant that people were more attentive; and there was a question about sonification’s subjectivity, but it was highlighted that all data presentation is subjective and there is a lot that can learned from the challenges of visual presentation of data.
In the second discussion people talked about using sonification to demonstrate gravitational waves, satellites, stars and galaxies. Outside of space, there were ideas to use sonification to detect structural changes in materials and connect a new audience to materials science. There were also ideas about using e.g. Google cardboard, adding haptic feedback, and having a silent disco.
There was a short plenary discussion where people highlighted how sound is used in computer games to illustrate key mood and environment changes and there is likely to be something to learn from that industry. While the current work focuses on physics data, it could be used for all large data sets.
There is code available to experiment with which is available from the Audio Universe website (see link below).
Key messages
- Sonification is way of taking large datasets and turning them into non-speech audio
- Testing with Blind and Visually Impaired People (BVIP) and non-BVIP shows that sonification is useful in being able to understand large, complex data
- There is a suite of tools and data available to experiment with sonification on the Audio Universe website
Resources
Audio Universe website
Symposium Partners
