Strömungen: Axel Volmar

»The Auditory Culture of Science: Trained Ears, Auditory Displays and the Prehistory of Data Sonification«

This talk ventures into the prehistory of sonification, the auditory equivalent to data visualization. By looking at key examples from diverse fields such as medicine, the life sciences, physics and the geo sciences, it locates the role of hearing, acoustic technologies and practices of trained listening within the modern experimental sciences. More specifically, it shows how acoustemic practices, i.e. sonic practices and modes of listening used to generate new insights, evidence and knowledge, moved from auditory observation of acoustic phenomena to deliberate transduction of signals and data structures into sound events. By connecting the infrastructures of epistemic listening to surrounding cultural, political, intellectual and material contexts, the paper portrays a lively and fertile auditory culture of scientific practice and discusses the discursive and material grounds which gave rise to scientific sonification as a field of research and practice in the 1980s and 90s.

Video Documentary:

ZKM | Institute for Visual Media

Camera: Peter Müller
Editing: Frenz Jordt
Live Editing: Moritz Büchner