Title:
Sonification: A Prehistory
Sonification: A Prehistory
Author(s)
Worrall, David
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Abstract
The idea that sound can convey information predates the
modern era, and certainly the computational present. Data
sonification can be broadly described as the creation, study
and use of the non-speech aural representation of
information to convey information. As a field of
contemporary enquiry and practice, data sonification is
young, interdisciplinary and evolving; existing in parallel to
the field of data visualization. Drawing on older practices
such as auditing, and the use of information messaging in
music, this paper provides an historical understanding of
how sound and its representational deployment in
communicating information has changed. In doing so, it
aims to encourage a critical awareness of some of the sociocultural as well as technical assumptions often adopted in
sonifying data, especially those that have been developed in
the context of Western music of the last half-century or so.
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Date Issued
2018-06
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Text
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Proceedings
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Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License.