Sonification and Music: Science meets Art

Abstract

The opposites, science and the arts, have always enjoyed a relationship. Recently, this relationship has been expressed in sonification, a branch of science seeking to add sound to data, giving data music-like intelligibility. Scientists believe that our aural capabilities are a potentially rich source of data that could assist in problem solving. In 2020, a sonic realization of the coronavirus was generated using its spike protein data. This sonification endeavoured to probe the coronavirus aurally. However, the creators of this sonified scientific probe are now claiming that their experiment is also a music composition. We examine this claim. This paper is underpinned by the conviction that not all sound is music. Music cannot represent anything other than itself because our understanding of music is always via allegory. Therefore, the efforts of Buehler, it is argued, are misdirected and trivial when placed in the stressed socio-political context of COVID-19.

Keywords:

• sonification
• coronavirus
• music
• science
• art
• desonification
• aesthetics

Notes

1 This refers to a music notation/text in which the interpretation of the text is left to chance or open to the interpreter’s choice.

2 An electronic device used for detecting radiation. The device has an electronic circuitry that that generates ‘clicks’ as the quantity of radiation entering its components increases.

3 See YouTube data on how a blind astronomer found a way to ‘hear’ the stars.

4 Richard Feynman’s diagrams are image-based representations showing the magnitude of a process or processes that can occur in multiple ways.

5 For a contextual discussion on sensation and the making of a nose refer to Bruno Latour’s How to Talk About the Body.

6 For examples of such sketches refer to the reworkings of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874).

7 In Chapter 3 of Eco’s The Role of the Reader (1979), he explains how a language composed initially of simple elements rapidly evolves from basic expressions to highly complex ones.

8 For individuals unfamiliar with the tam-tam or gong, view the opening of any Rank film. Rank Organizations films are introduced with a scene of the company’s trademark Gongman.