“Sonification for Sharing Auditory Perspectives on Data” – Dr. Thomas Hermann (Bielefeld University)

Sonification, the auditory representation of data, enables much more than the discovery of hidden structure in complex data – it enables users to monitor processes, to self-regulate own body movement, to substitute sensory channels, to amplify subtle movement properties, or to raise awareness to information without distracting or disrupting primary activity.

The presentation will highlight a number of the benefits of sonification by giving sound examples, and put a particular emphasis on a particularly helpful yet under-examined aspect: the ability of sound to externalize information so that different people can share and address what is going on. To discuss this point, examples from sonification for sports swimming, physiotherapy, and applications in the arts will be shown.

Thomas Hermann studied physics (Dipl.-Phys.) and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2002 from Bielefeld University. He is currently head of the Ambient Intelligence Group within CITEC, the Center of Excellence in Cognitive Interaction Technology at Bielefeld University. Thomas Hermann initiated and co-organised all triannual European Interactive Sonification Workshops since 2004. He was vice-chair and German delegate of the EU COST Action IC0601 on Sonic Interaction Design from 2008-2011. He is guest editor of four Special Issues on Interactive Sonification (IEEE Multimedia and Springer Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces) and editor of The Sonification Handbook (2011). More than 175 publications and lots of sonification examples are available online at <https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/person/11596>. His research focus is on sonification, data mining, human-computer interaction and ambient intelligence, with particular interest in biomedical applications and interactive sonification to enhance motor control.

There are no specific texts assigned, but if you are interested you can have a look at this: Sonification Handbook