Singing Data:

Sonification and
the Relation
between Science
and Art
During an event related to the David Bowie is exhibition in April 2013, the musicians
Alexis Kirke and Martyn Ware took the stage with an eccentric set of compositions
at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Their pieces, which they referred
to as a “career sonification” of David Bowie, translated statistical analyses of
Bowie’s work over the years into a series of sometimes quite dissonant-sounding
electronic pieces. One piece used an analysis of the emotional content of Bowie’s
lyrics to drive a “hyperspeed piano” tune, while another mapped his album sales
onto pitch – resulting in both painfully high tones and low rumbling sounds, to mark
the huge fluctuation in commercial success over the years.(FIG. 1)1

Alexandra Supper 11

FIG. 1 Alexis Kirke and Martyn Ware, Career Sonification of David Bowie , 2011.
Chart of David Bowie Singles Lyrical POSITIVITY (word based).
1 The
A brief explanation and
sound examples of the two
sonifications discussed
above can be found on
Alexis Kirke’s website:
www.alexiskirke.com/
projects/sonification-of-
david-bowies-career/.
2
The following texts provide
an overview and introduction
to the field of sonification
research: Gregory Kramer
et al., “Sonification Report:
Status of the Field and
Research Agenda. Report
pre-pared for the National
Science Foundation by mem-
bers of the International
Community for Auditory Dis-
play” (1997), www.icad.org/
websiteV2.0/References/
nsf.html; Thomas Hermann,
Andy Hunt, and John G.
Neuhoff, eds., The Sonifica-
tion Handbook (Berlin: Logos
Verlag, 2011). For a critical fication,
discussion of the efforts
to define sonification in
relation to science and art,
see Alexandra Supper,
“The Search for the ‘Killer
Application’: Drawing the
Boundaries around the Soni­
fication of Scientific Data,” a recording of one of Bowie’s
in The Oxford Handbook
of Sound Studies, ed. Trevor
Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld
(New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 249–70.
3
See Florian Dombois, “Using
Audification in Planetary
Seismology,” in Proceedings
of the 7th International
Conference on Auditory Dis­
play, July 29–August 1, 2001, on the contrary, the blurring
Espoo, Finland, http://hdl.
handle.net/1853/50660;
Gerold Baier, Thomas Her-
mann, and Ulrich Stephani,
“Event-based Sonification of
EEG Rhythms in Real Time,”
Clinical Neurophysiology 118,
no. 6 (2007): 1377–86.
career sonification of
Bowie’s work may seem like a
somewhat unusual example of
sonification, the auditory repre­
sentation of data. After all,
the idea of sonification is that
data – which in and of them­
selves usually have nothing to
do with sound – are translated
into an audible signal, for the
purposes of facilitating commu­
nication or interpretation.2 Some
prominent examples include the
sonification of scientific data
from domains such as neurology
3
or seismology. The career soni­
on the other hand, is
based on data that already deal
with music. Nonetheless, the piece
follows the principles of sonifi­
cation: rather than playing back
songs, it creates new sounds
that are driven by parameters in
a dataset. Also, there is nothing
unusual about the fact that ele­
ments of scientific data display
and music are brought together –
of boundaries between art and
science is quite typical for soni­
fication. In this essay, I want
to trace the relationship between
science and art in sonification.
S
 inging Stars and Banging
Brains: Musical Precedents
for Sonification
The idea of making data audible has a
long musical tradition. Some of the
canonical early examples include John
Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis, composed
in 1961/1962, which transposed a map of
the stars onto a graphical score; Alvin
Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer, first
performed in 1965, which amplified
brainwaves and then used the resulting
pressure waves to trigger percussion
instruments placed around the stage; and
Charles Dodge’s Earth’s Magnetic Field,
released in 1970, which used electro­
magnetic data to control computer-generated
4
sound. Compositions like these are not intended
to enable scientific insights or communicate facts,
but rather to open up a compositional approach.
They can be understood as part of a shift in the
course of the twentieth century from conceptions
of music that stress its individuality, subjectivity,
and expression toward a more materialist and
objective one, emphasizing artistic restraint and
preaching “the resolute elimination of the artist’s
ego or personality from the artistic product.”5
Sonification, as a way of ostensibly handing over
some compositional decisions to scientific data
rather than an individual artist, fits this tendency
perfectly.
However, this is not to say that composi­
tional decisions are indeed delegated entirely
to data. Lucier’s Music for Solo Performer is a case
in point: although Lucier has a reputation for
using his compositions as a means of exploring
natural and scientific phenomena,6 the piece
is by no means directly driven by brainwaves.
A series of aesthetic decisions and technological
interventions shape the musical output – not
in the least because an assistant decides which
loudspeakers, and thus which adjacent percussion
instruments, to activate during any given part
of the performance. As Volker Straebel and
Wilm Thoben have recently pointed out, Lucier
has sometimes downplayed these decisions and
boosted the illusion of a direct translation of
brainwaves into music to create theatrical effects –
an interpretation that has been eagerly picked
up by the interdisciplinary community dedicated
12

to sonification, declaring Lucier’s piece and practices can make important
similar compositions as artistic forerunners of contributions to sonification
sonification.7 research.9 At the same time,
there is widespread agreement
(even among artists and com­
Near, but out: Demarcating posers) within the community
Sonification from Music that sonification should not
be equated with music, and
The musical examples discussed in the previous there have been some pleas to
section have predated the coining of the term limit the definition of the term
“sonification,” and have emerged independently “sonification” to cases where
of the dedicated sonification research community. it is used systematically as a
This community has developed over the last three scientific method, effectively
decades and has found its institutional embodi­ excluding artistic approaches.10
ment in the International Community for Auditory The research commu­
Display (ICAD), founded in 1992. It convenes at nity dedicated to sonification
annual conferences, in which an interdisciplinary thus engages in a delicate bal­
group of researchers – ranging from psychologists ancing act to position itself in
to physicists, and from computer scientists to relation to artistic approaches.
composers – come together to present their latest They seek contact with sound
research about the use of non-speech sound to artists and musicians, but are
display data and convey information. careful to present sonification
Much of the work of the community as something other than music
concerns the systematic technical development or sound art. Quite characteristi­
and evaluation of techniques for transforming cally for this delicate balancing
data into sound, especially ones that can be used act, the sonification researchers
by scientific specialists to complement existing, Gerold Baier and Thomas
usually visual, data analysis techniques. Many Hermann have welcomed their
scientists outside of this research community, how­ audience at a presentation in
ever, react with scepticism to the idea of listening the context of a festival for con­
to data: the notion that only seeing can generate temporary music by expressing
objective insights, while hearing creates sub­ their gratitude for the audience’s
jective impressions, is widespread. Consequently, interest “even though this has
an important activity of the sonification com­ nothing to do with music.”11 The
munity consists in “lobbying for the ear”: seek­- fact that they regard their work
ing to establish sonification as a scientific and on the sonification of brain­
objective method by emphasizing the capabilities waves as having nothing to do
of the human hearing system in systematically with music was apparently
processing information.8 In order to understand no reason for them to turn down
their strategies for doing so, the way in which an invitation to present their
they draw the boundaries between science and art work at a music festival; quite
is revealing. on the contrary, they very enthu­
From the very beginnings of this com­ siastically took this chance to
munity, composers and musicians have been introduce an artistically informed
prominently involved in sonification research; audience to the principles of
and to this day, a broad consensus exists that sonification while also caution­
the involvement of artists and composers is bene­ ing them that it is not the same
ficial for the success of sonification: not just as music.
because they can help to create public interest, Similarly, many of
but also because their skills related to technical the annual sonification confer­
implementation, aesthetic design, and listening ences organized by the ICAD
4
See Douglas Kahn, “Alvin
Lucier, Edmond Dewand
und Music for Solo Per-
former,” in Klangmaschinen
zwischen Experiment und
Medientech­nik, ed. Daniel
Gethmann (Bielefeld:
transcript Verlag, 2010),
211–29; Andi Schoon and
Florian Dombois, “Soni-
fication in Music,” in Pro-
ceedings of the 15th Inter-
national Conference on
Auditory Display, May 18–
22, 2009, Copenhagen,
Denmark, http://hdl.handle.
net/1853/51415; Volker
Straebel, “The Sonification
Metaphor in Instrumental
Music and Sonification’s
Romantic Implications,”
in Proceedings of the 16th
International Conference
on Auditory Display, June
9–15, 2010, Washington,
DC, http://hdl.handle.net/
1853/50066; Alexandra
Supper, “Sublime Frequen-
cies: The Construction of
Sublime Listening Experi-
ences in the Sonifica­tion
of Scientific Data,” Social
Studies of Science 44,
no. 1 (2014): 34–58.
5
Richard Taruskin, The
Oxford History of Western
Music. Volume 5: The Late
Twentieth Century (New
York: Oxford University
Press, 2005), 55. Also see
Ian Willcock, “Composing
Without Composers?
Creation, Control, and Indi-
viduality in Computer-based
Algorithmic Composition,”
in Electronics in New Music,
ed. Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf,
Frank Cox, and Wolfram
Schurig (Hofheim: Wolke
Verlag, 2006), 221–35.
6
Indeed, in a personal inter-
view I conducted with
Lucier (Vienna, November 1,
2008), he mentioned that
his desire to explore such
phenomena through his
work was a point of dis-
agreement between him and
John Cage, who accused
him of being too invested in
cause-and-effect relation-
ships rather than sound on
its own terms.
7
See Volker Straebel and
Wilm Thoben, “Alvin Lucier’s
Music for Solo Performer:
Experimental Music Beyond
Sonification,” Organised
Sound 19, no. 1 (2014): 17–29.
8
See Supper, “The Search
for the ‘Killer Application’”
(see note 2, above); Alexandra
Supper, “Lobbying for the
Ear: The Public Fascination
with and Academic Legiti­
macy of the Sonification of
Scientific Data” (PhD diss.,
Maastricht University, 2012).
9
Ibid.
13
 community feature an evening programme with
concerts, often with sonification-based music.
The inclusion of these concerts stimulate cross-
pollination between artistic and scientific
applications of sonification; but they also convey
the message that such artistic applications are
best suited to the evening programme rather than
the scientific sessions during the day. Art and
music are thus kept near, but out.12

Sonification in Sound Art:

Stellar Epistemologies

While the sonification community has been

attempting to keep artistic and musical sonifica­
tion projects at arm’s length (though no further
than that), sonification has nonetheless been
sprouting outside of this community, not least
because it has become a popular ingredient of
science popularization initiatives. In those cases,
it is used not so much as a data analysis technique
for scientific specialists, but rather as a means
of communicating (sometimes simplified) mes­
sages to lay audiences. During the 2014 Rosetta
mission, for instance, the Euro­
10 pean Space Agency published
See Thomas Hermann,
“Taxonomy and Definitions a press release with an mp3
for Sonifi­cation and Auditory file promising the listeners to
Display,” in Proceedings of
the 14th International Con- hear the sounds of a “singing
ference on Auditory Display,
June 24–27, 2008, Paris, comet.” The accompanying
France, http://hdl.handle. sound file, created by German
net/1853/49960.
11 musician and sound designer
For this event, part of a
series on “Music and the Manuel Senfft, succeeded in
Brain” at Vienna’s 2008 Wien creating quite a stir on social
Modern festival, the pre­
sentation of Hermann and media and contributed to
Baier’s sonifications was
paired with a performance the public excitement about the
by Alvin Lucier of his Music Rosetta mission in the days
for Solo Performer. Lucier
also acted as a test subject leading up to the first success-
for a live demonstration
of the scientific sonification ful landing of a space probe
by Baier and Hermann. module on a comet.13
12
This phrasing is borrowed It may seem easy to dis­
from Thomas Gieryn,
who has remarked that the miss sonification as something
boundary work of science of a gimmick to grab public
involves keeping politics
“near but out.” See Thomas interest for scientific research
F. Gieryn, “Boundaries of
Science,” in Handbook of Sci- among laypeople; however, that
ence and Technology Studies, is not my intention in this essay.
ed. Sheila Jasanoff et al.
(Thousand Oaks: SAGE Rather, in the following two
Publications, 1995), 393–443.
13
sections, I want to discuss a few FIGS. 2a–c Semiconductor, Brilliant Noise , 2006. Filmic
See http://blogs.esa.int/ selected examples where sonifi­ installation, various lengths, SD / HD / single channel
rosetta/2014/11/11/the- and multi-channel versions. A Semiconductor work by
singing-comet/. cation has been used by artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.

Alexandra Supper 14

FIGS. 3a–d Semiconductor, Black Rain, 2009. Filmic installa­
tion, 03:00 min. / 17:00 min. loop, single channel and installation.
A Semiconductor work by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt.
and musicians to do more than that. Unlike the
musical examples mentioned earlier, these artistic
sonification projects have been inspired and influ­
enced by scientific terminology and approaches
for translating data into sound; yet, as I want to
show, they also open new possibilities for thinking
about scientific phenomena. With a few examples
of sonifications of astronomical data, I show
how they can open up a space for epistemological
reflection. Subsequently, I discuss how sonifica­
tions of geophysical data have been used to raise
environmental awareness.
The British artist duo Semiconductor
have used the sonification (and visualization) of
solar astronomical data as the basis of their
multi­media installations Brilliant Noise and Black
Rain.(FIGS. 2a-c, 3a-d),14 As the artists explain in a video
interview for the Creators Project, they are inter­
ested in exploring “how man experiences the
nature of the physical world around him and how
the tools of science come into that.”15 An import­
ant aspect of this exploration is that both of the
aforementioned pieces work with raw data from
satellite transmissions, rather than cleaned-up
and processed datasets. Aesthetically, the grainy
texture of the resulting sounds and images pro­
vides a stark counterpoint to the frequently quite
polished and glossy representations of outer
space in the popular scientific imagination. As art
historian Inge Hinterwaldner points out, “Semi­
conductor embraces what is normally filtered
out”:16 the noises and distortions that are usually
painstakingly removed from scientific datasets
become an essential part of the work of art. By
leaving in and drawing attention to artefacts and
glitches, the artists also remind us “of the pres­
ence of the human observer who endeavours to
extend our perceptions and knowledge through
technological innovation,”17 and thus of the many
human interventions that make scientific repre­
sentation possible in the first place.
The piece Bonner Durchmusterung [Bonn
Patternization] by electronic composer Marcus
Schmickler (in collaboration with composer/
sonification researcher Alberto de Campo, visual
artist Carsten Goertz, and astronomer Michael
Geffert) similarly uses sonification as a space
for epistemological reflection.(FIG. 4) Unlike in the
films of Semiconductor, the sounds of Bonner
Durchmusterung are not driven by its images.
If anything, the piece reverses the usual hierarchy
15
FIG. 4 Marcus Schmickler
et al., Bonner Durchmus­-
terung , 2009. Composition
based on sonifications
of astronomical models and
data with projections, 10.2
channel audio, projections,
33 mins. Commissioned by
IYA 2009 (International Year
of Astronomy) and Deutscher
Musikrat.

between sound and vision: considering the prom­ models and visualizations in astronomical
inent role of visualization in the scientific enter­ research, and call into question “the relationship
prise, one might expect that the visual projection between data and reality of the observed objects.”19
aims for a more objective representation of How, for instance, does one come from a com­
scientific facts, while the sonification serves as plex series of numbers to an understanding of the
an illustrative soundtrack. In Bonner Durchmuste­­ objects or even to a consistent phenomenology
rung, however, much more artistic license was of the cosmos? The essay concludes by encourag­
taken with the visualization than with the sonifi­ ing artists and scientists to work together on a
cation. While the sounds are quite straightfor­ mutually enriching “poetic interpretation, depiction
wardly driven by scientific data­ and contextualization of scientific knowledge.”
14 sets and sound fairly abstract, Indeed, in my interview with the composer, he
See http://
semiconductorfilms.com/ the visualization “treats the stressed that he was interested in sonification as a
art/brilliant-noise/ and subjects more freely or asso­ means of triggering interdisciplinary reflexivity.20
http://semiconductorfilms.
com/art/black-rain/. ciatively,”18 evoking concrete,
15
See video file on http:// urban spaces.
thecreatorsproject.
vice.com/blog/meet-
Sonification in Sound Art: Sonic
semiconductor-the-mad- The programme notes for the Ecologies
scientists-of-the-visual-
art-realm. piece not only briefly explain
16 the ten astronomical phenom­ Not only astrophysical data have inspired sound
Inge Hinterwaldner, “Semi-
conductor’s Landscapes ena that have been sonified artists and musicians in their work, however. In
as Sound-Sculptured
Time-Based Visualizations,” (including solar eruptions and this section, I want to discuss several examples of
Technoetic Arts: A Journal gamma ray bursts), but also artistic sonifications based on data from another
of Speculative Research 12,
no. 1 (2014): 15–38, here p. 30. promise “an epistemological domain, that of geophysics. With their Aftershock
17
See http:// exchange between music and sound installation,(FIGS. 5a-c) which debuted at the
semiconductorfilms.com/ astronomy.” Starting out from Norwegian art gallery ROM in 2011, the sound
art/black-rain/.
18 the statement that even “raw artist Natasha Barrett and geoscientist Karen Mair
Interview by the author
with Marcus Schmickler, data are deeply dependent on a promise listeners the ability to “experience the
Cologne, April 15, 2010. theoretical model of the world intricacies of the inherently 3D process of rock
19
See http://patternization. on which the measuring pro­ deformation from the inside.” Aftershock is in fact
org/ for the quoted
program notes and some cedure is based,” Schmickler not a single sound installation, but rather a set of
sound examples. and his collaborators reflect four interrelated works, which are placed in spa­
20
Interview with Marcus on the role of mathematical tially separate but adjacent zones of the exhibition
Schmickler.

Alexandra Supper 16
 FIGS. 5a–c Natasha Barrett and
Karen Mair, Aftershock , 2011.
Interactive sound art installation.

FIG. 6 John Luther Adams,

The Place Where You Go
to Listen , 2004–2006.
A continuous sound and light
environment at the University
of Alaska, Fairbanks Museum
of the North.

17
 21 space, thus allowing the sound yet he also insists that it is “a work of art” rather
See Natasha Barrett and
Karen Mair, “Aftershock: of the four installations to than a “scientific demonstration of natural pheno­
A scienceart collaboration
through sonification,” intermingle. The installation is mena.” What’s more, Adams points out, the piece
Organised Sound 19, no. 1 meant to encourage an active does not aspire to simulate the natural world,
(2014): 4–16. Also see www.
natashabarrett.org/crush3. exploration of geophysical but rather “is a heightened form of experience
html for more information
and a short video. phenomena; in fact, the instal­ itself.” Unlike Aftershock, the piece continuously
22 lation remains silent unless an emits sound (and light) whether a listener is pres­
Kyle Gann, “Fairbanks:
A Long Ride in a Slow Ma- “exploring listener” is present ent or not, but nonetheless, the listener’s experi­
chine,” NewMusicBox (2006),
www.newmusicbox.org/ and triggers the sounds.21 ence of a sense of place stands central according
articles/fairbanks-a-long- Aftershock is not the to the composer: “The essence of this work is
ride-in-a-slow-machine/.
23 only recent example of a sound the sounding of natural forces interacting with the
John Luther Adams, The
Place Where You Go to Listen:installation based on geophys­ consciousness of the listener.”23
In Search of an Ecology of ical data. The sound-and-light In a recent article about the piece, musi­
Music (Middletown: Wesleyan
installation The Place Where
Uni­versity Press, 2009), 5, 8. cologist Tyler Kinnear suggests that Adams’s
24
Tyler Kinnear, “Voicing You Go to Listen by composer sounding of the inaudible voices of nature con­
Nature in John Luther John Luther Adams, installed tains a “gesture of environmental advocacy.”24
Adams’s The Place Where
You Go to Listen,” Organ- at the University of Alaska’s Adams, argues Kinnear, “is not interested in
ised Sound 17, no. 3 (2012):
230–39, here p. 237. Museum of the North in Fair­ representing an environment; rather, he seeks to
25 banks, is even more ambitious transform it.”25 Indeed, Adams deliberately tried
Ibid., 231.
26 in its translation of geoscientific to avoid “conventional modes of musical expres­
Adams, The Place Where You
Go to Listen, 139. Also see data into sound.(FIG. 6) Rather sion and picturesque evocations of nature,”26 and
David Rothenberg, “Go There than sonifying a single dataset, thus used sine tones and filtered noise, rather than
to Listen: How Music Based
on Nature Might Not Need Adams has opted to tackle sounds that mimic natural processes or musical
Natural Sounds,” in The
Farthest Place: The Music several at once, combining seis­ instruments. Rather than offering a simulation
of John Luther Adams, mological, geomagnetic, and of natural phenomena, Adams tries to evoke an
ed. Bernd Herzogenrath
(Boston: Northeastern Uni- meteorological datasets – all of experience of space and the environment which
versity Press, 2012), 107–15.
27
which are translated into sound is fundamentally driven by ecological concerns
Adams, The Place Where You in real time. The result is a about “overpopulation, overconsumption, pollu­
Go to Listen, 9.
28 complex sonic tapestry based tion, deforestation and widespread extinction.”27
Ibid.
29
on a number of scientific Climate change and environmental destruction are
Andrea Polli, “Soundscape, para­meters (from the current recurrent themes of the composer’s diary written
Sonification, and Sound
Activism,” AI & Society 27, position of the sun and moon during the making of the installation.28
no. 2 (2012): 257–68.
30
to seismic and geomagnetic John Luther Adams is not the only
See www.andreapolli.com/ activity), described as follows composer or sound artist who has drawn upon
centralpark.
by music critic Kyle Gann: sonification to express environmental and eco­
“You walk in, separate yourself logical concerns: such issues form a red thread
from the world directly outside, sit on the bench, running through the works of sound artist Andrea
and slip into the red-and-violet, or blue-and- Polli – in a recent journal article, Polli muses
yellow, moods of the five glass panels in front about the potential of sonification to raise envi­
of you. A continual hum greets you, and after a ronmental awareness.29 For instance, her 2009
moment you begin to sort out the strands of album Sonic Antarctica(FIG. 7) combines meteo­
the complex tapestry that the hum turns out to ro­logical sonifications, field recordings, and
be. There are sustained chords, an intermittent snippets of interviews with climate researchers
rattle of deep bells overhead, and an irregular who talk not only about their scientific findings,
boom of extremely low frequencies that you have but also about their environmental motivations;
to focus on to remain aware of.”22 another project, called Heat and the Heartbeat of
In a book companion to the installation, the City,(FIGS. 8a, b) makes concerns about climate
Adams emphasizes that the piece transforms change audible by translating predicted tempera­
“inaudible forces of nature into audible sound” ture changes in New York’s Central Park into
and that these forces therefore drive some of sound.30 Both of these projects engage in a dialogue
the decisions traditionally made by the composer; with the scientists studying the phenomena that

Alexandra Supper 18
FIG. 7 Andrea Polli, Sonic Antarctica , 2007/2008. Project including a radio broadcast, live performance
as well as a sound and visual installation.

FIGS. 8 Andrea Polli in

collaboration with Cynthia
Rosenzweig, David Rind,
and Richard Goldberg, Heat
and the Heartbeat of the
City, 2004. Web-based
interactive work including
sonifications illustrating
projected climate changes
focusing on the heart of
New York City. Screenshots.

19
 Polli translates into sound, and in both cases,
the voices of those scientists have become part of
the works themselves. If Polli uses her work to
raise environmental awareness, then, that does
not just mean that she draws attention to those
issues; her work also becomes a place for inter­
disciplinary dialogue between artists and scientists
on issues related to the environment.
Conclusions
Contrary to the musical examples in the first
section of this essay, all of the artistic projects
described in the previous two sections were
to some extent informed by scientific termin­-
ology and approaches for sonifying data – and
indeed, in several cases, the artistic projects have
fed back into scientific research. For instance,
the Aftershock collaboration, which started
out as an artistic collaboration between sound
artist Barrett and geophysicist Mair, has led to
a scientific poster presentation at the 2014 general
assembly of the European Geosciences Union,31
while sound artist Andrea Polli has presented
one of her projects to an audience of sonification
specialists at the 2004 ICAD conference.32
Clearly, then, sonification is a domain
that opens up possibilities for exchange and
interactions between science and art. These
exchanges and interactions can take a myriad of
forms. In an article about the emerging practice
of art-science (though not primarily in relation
to sound), Georgina Born and
31
See http://meetingorganizer. Andrew Barry have identified
copernicus.org/EGU2014/ three different “logics” accord­
EGU2014-4489.pdf. Original-
ly, Barrett and Mair had also ing to which art-science initia­
proposed a special session
dedicated to sonification, tives can operate: the logic
but the session was eventu- of accountability, in which art
ally withdrawn (see http://
meetingorganizer.coper- helps to make science account­
nicus.org/EGU2014/ses-
sion/15515). able and accessible to a broad
32 public; the logic of innovation,
Andrea Polli, “Atmospherics/
Weather Works: A Multi- in which interdisciplinary
Channel Storm Sonification
Project,” in Proceedings research fuels industrial inno­
of the 10th International vation and economic growth;
Conference on Auditory Dis-
play, July 6–9, 2004, Sydney, and the logic of ontology,
Australia, www.icad.org/
websiteV2.0/Conferences/ directed at altering “ways of
ICAD2004/papers/polli.pdf. thinking about the nature
33
Georgina Born and Andrew of art and science” and “trans­
Barry, “Art-Science: From
Public Understanding to forming the relations between
Public Experiment,” Journal artists and scientists and
of Cultural Economy 3, no. 1
(2010): 103–19, here p. 105. their objects and publics.”33
Alexandra Supper
The latter, in particular, is often neglected in
discussions about the value of interdisciplinary
and art-science research.
The distinction between different logics
of interdisciplinarity can illuminate how the
relationship between science and art is negotiated
within the scientific community dedicated to
sonification research. As I have discussed, this
community values the contributions of musicians
and composers for increasing the public appeal
and accessibility (logic of accountability), as well
as the technical and aesthetic design of sonifi­
cation (logic of innovation). But at the same time,
the boundary between scientific and artistic
uses of sonification, while interpreted flexibly,
is not altogether dissolved: the community is
engaged in a careful balancing act between science
and art. This balancing act is constitutive of
the (inter)disciplinary identity of the sonification
community, and fuels many of the debates going
on within the community about what sonification
is and should be. In other words, encounters
with sound art and music help the sonification
community to rethink the nature of their work
and its relation with its objects and publics – the
logic of ontology is at play within the sonification
community, too.
However, the relationship between science
and art is not one-sided: the case of sonification
shows that not only science can benefit from
the engagement with artistic practices, but that
the reverse is also true. Indeed, the three different
logics of interdisciplinarity also run in the oppo­
site direction: for artists – especially those work­
ing in traditions that lack mainstream exposure –
the engagement with scientific topics can also
help to attract new audiences (logic of account­
ability), while encounters with scientists working
on sonification can lead to new tools that can
also be used in artistic contexts (logic of innova­
tion). Perhaps most intriguingly, however, the
engagement of composers and sound artists with
scientific data can also take the form of a logic
of ontology. Indeed, as many of the examples in
this essay have shown, their ability (or at least
intention) to stimulate epistemological and onto­
logical reflection, and to second-guess taken-for-
granted scientific assumptions and conventions,
is a particularly fascinating aspect of many artistic
sonification projects.
20