So far I found two sonification projects regarding the COVID-19 epidemics. I will try to keep this post updated should more people work on sound and data until this is over (we all hope that will be soon).
The first approach is taken by the guys at HER - she loves data, and Italian Cultural Research Center using Data and Computation (Complex Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Networks, Ecosystems) to create Cultural Acceleration processes through Arts and Design, and the results of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation.
I can only share the link to the online sonification: https://he-r.it/Corona/ as it seems to be streaming in real - time on the web page. I say it seems, because actually if you do listen to it, it loops after a while. I guess you can also cross check how often it loops from the display of data/number of cases/country, but there are instances in which it goes so fast that I cannot really follow.
The other one is a students’ project from the Master in Music, Communication & Technology (MCT) of Norwegian Universities of Oslo and Trondheim, who set up very quickly an impressive and ambitious project meticulously described on their blog. Here I can share a video of a bit more than 4 minutes of sonification. It’s interesting to read how they went through several steps to refine the mapping strategy and how they describe the coding, even if I’d had liked to see more considerations on the design of sounds - the idea of using an orchestra (as a metaphor or a “choral” situation where all the world is, against its will, collaborating?) is good but honestly even to a very trained ear like mine it is very difficult to keep focus over the four minutes, distinguish the instruments and remembering how they are mapped to the different geopolitical areas. From a design perspective, I’m thinking whether including context-based elements would make it easier for the average listener to connect to the meaning of data. mmm…maybe culturally - related sound elements (folk music? languages?) would help connect? Or alternatively, experimenting with an everyday life metaphors? I’m working with natural soundscapes (but artificial/urban soundscapes would work, too) and I wonder whether this could make things easier to gauge.
On the other hand, “A song for Corona” (the first project) well contextualises the situation with the use of drones and breathing - like sound which will work well in a sci-fi movie…but aren’t we all living in a sci-fi movie these days? Having said that, there’s no description of mapping on the website (therefore, the listener has no idea how to get insights on data from sound), there seems to be a latency between the visual display and the changing of sounds which makes it ever more unreliable to try to guess data meaning crosschecking sound and visuals. Probably not the goal of the authors but again, we don’t really know.
One thing that’s missing in both cases is an authors’ statement on the goal of the sonification: is it an art project (as it seems to be the case of HER’s project) or is it to help non experts make sense of the immense data flow on COVID-19 we are being exposed to these days? Or is it a tool to support data analysis?
I’ve been reflecting lately, prompted by and together with Paolo Ciuccarelli, on the role on intentionality in data sonification projects and how intentionality is fundamentally a design aspect or, how reflecting on the intention behind a sonification would bring us inevitably to reflect on the design choices that are made. What is the intention behind these two cases would give us, as listener, a guideline on how to approach the listening experience instead of feeling a bit - as I did - slightly inadequate in realising we don’t really understand what’s going on and is it only me not getting it?…which as user, it’s never a nice feeling. And if we had to agree with the Donald Norman of Things that makes us smart, well, we’d say it not our problem, it’s a design problem.