Sonification of weather data as a non-human-centric artistic approach

Abstract

Background - In the mid-20th century, the emergence of sound studies demonstrated a shift of research interest in sonic practitioners. This field gains its prevalence by expanding the boundaries of prevailing conception through proposing alternative creative approaches in sound art practices. Methods – Two methods were presented – listening and sounding to promote creative sound making. The first method, listening involves soundwalking and recording sound from the external environments. These recordings were then re-evaluated and post-processed in audio editing software. The second method, sounding involves the creation of a weather data sonification system in Pure Data environment, in which the perceptual experience from the first method was taken into consideration. Result – First method enables the genesis of creative idiosyncrasies, such as preferences and ideas through the sonic perception of environmental events. In this process, noise and weather were identified as environmental components that share similar sensible qualities. Thus, noise is a prevalent medium that inspires the creation of sound generators in the sonification system presented in this paper. The sonic output of data sonification reveals an analogical connection between weather data and sonic parameters, in which changes in data values result in changes in acoustic properties. These outputs deliver different sensibilities based on their data parameters; sonification of temperature data might suggest an alarming effect to the listener. Conclusion – The proposed methods were intricately linked, suggesting environmental events to be perceived and realized through a non-scientific perspective. By highlighting aesthetic possibilities of environmental components, this paper presents an alternative perspective in contrast with the human-centric worldview through the creation of sonic works.