Brainwaves in concert: the 20th century sonification of the electroencephalogram.

Abstract

Over the past decade, sonification, the transformation of data into sound, has received considerable attention from the scientific community. While the sense of vision continues to predominate the hierarchy of senses, auditory data representation has been increasingly recognized as a legitimate technique to complement existing modes of data display (Supper, 2012). Sonification is, however, not an exclusively scientific endeavour; the technique has been commonly applied within the domain of experimental music. This poses a challenge to the field, as some argue for a sharper distinction between scientific and artistic sonification, whereas others proclaim openness to both sides of the science–art spectrum (Supper, 2012). The interplay between science and art is beautifully demonstrated by the sonification of the EEG, a practice that was first described in the early 1930s and subsequently gave rise to a variety of medical and artistic applications. In neurophysiology, sonification was used to complement visual EEG analysis, which had become increasingly complex by the middle of the 20th century. In experimental music, the encounter between physicist Edmond Dewan (1931–2009) and composer Alvin Lucier (b. 1931) inspired the first brainwave composition Music for the solo performer (1965). By the end of the century, advances in EEG and sound technology ultimately gave rise to brain–computer music interfaces (BCMIs), a multidisciplinary achievement that has enhanced expressive abilities of both patients and artists (Miranda, 2014). In this article, we aim to place the sonification of the EEG in its historical context, thereby seeking to draw attention to the previously underexposed scientific technique of sonification, but also to illustrate the way in which the domains of science and art may, perhaps more than occasionally, enhance one another. In 1929, the German psychiatrist Hans Berger (1873–1941) published his first report on the human EEG, in which he described a method for recording …