From Metaphor to Medium: Sonification as Extension of Our Body
Author(s)
Gossmann, Joachim
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Abstract
Following Marshal McLuhan’s perspective on media as extensions
of man, sonification for the generation of knowledge can be
regarded as an extension of our auditory sense toward previously
imperceptible properties of our environment. Investigating our
own involvement from an ontological perspective allows us to generate
conceptual handles for the research, development and use of
tools for sonification and the implied extension of our physical
body through technology. Based on the nature of our bodies as
mediators between the shared exterior and the individual interior,
a model of three problematic areas of our extended bodies is presented:
the cognitive, the physical and the extended.
When we research, design and develop new applications and
methods in sonification, we investigate the models and metaphors
used in each of these areas, but it is only when we use the developed
applications that we actually understand what potentials of
perception and exploration we are provided with. It is therefore
not sufficient to only build an exterior apparatus: The extended
body is each of our own—each researcher and user of sonification
develops an individual relationship to all affordances provided.
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Date
2010-06
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Text
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Proceedings