Book Review
Title: The Sonification Handbook
Author: Thomas Hermann (Author/Editor), Andy Hunt (Editor), John G Neuhoff (Editor)
Publisher: Logos Verlag
Date: January 26, 2011
This book is an advanced exploration into sonification perception, the interdisciplinary investigation of understanding data, including visual data, via non-speech sound only. It involves the sensory, aesthetic, and intellectual processing of audio non-speech data to perceptualize the information. The audio data conveyed must be meaningful and useful.
A partial explanation of sonification suggested in the book is that “the use of nonverbal sounds to convey useful information embraces both functionality and aesthetics” (153). This is where it becomes most interesting to me: the aesthetic dimension. No one would dispute that the data conveyed must be meaningful and useful. The interesting question is: Must it be aesthetic?
Strictly speaking, I would not insist on the aesthetic dimension. But I would suggest that the aesthetic dimension heightens the meaningfulness and strengthens the usefulness, which are the two key requirements. Why? Because aesthetic quality intensifies perception. Whatever we learn, we learn it better when it is aesthetically complex. Whatever we experience, we feel it more deeply and remember it more accurately when it carries an aesthetic impression.
Certainly the argument is valid that aesthetic quality without usefulness fails the most basic sonification requirement. Hence, a citation to my work in the book notes that I define art as “purely and simply an aesthetic object that appeals to the senses in a certain way” (155). It may very well be useless, from a conventional, practical point of view. The example given is Radiohead’s “House of Cards”—“as it provides no insight, it is pure spectacle … it does not fulfill the criterion of usefulness” (154). So I agree, usefulness must come first.
That’s not because art must be useful. It’s because sonification must be useful. Sonification is not a phenomenon forcing usefulness onto aesthetics. It is a phenomenon that is more effective when it includes aesthetic complexity. The aesthetic dimension cannot deliver a sonification experience, merely accelerate it.
Insisting on art is neither productive nor useful in the development of Sonification. “Artistic data visualization” (156) as an end in itself takes the art dimension too far, creating a sort of “sonification-as-art” goal. Here, aesthetics is merely a helpful dimension of a larger communications process. Introducing “art” as a goal brings an artificial tension, such as the contrast introduced in the bar graph on page 157. The graph delineates full artistic freedom versus strict artistic constraints: “a system that is informed by underlying data but in which artistic freedom is the main driver … [versus] … a system in which artistic expression is much more tightly constrained with the focus being clear representation of a data set” (157). Rather than talking about “sonification,” now I think we are talking about “sonification plus something else.” To remove the artificial tension, remove the artistic driver altogether. Aesthetic considerations should never impede the focus on clear representation of a data set. The bar graph on page 157 should not exist.
My conclusion from my aesthetic frame of reference is as follows: Sonification can afford to ignore aesthetics, but sonification that obtains aesthetic complexity will be more effective. How does a third-party observer judge whether a sonification experience had an aesthetic dimension? That can never happen. The person receiving the non-speech audio data is the one-and-only judge of the aesthetic impact. Knowing that we all share some sort of aesthetic faculty, however, we can work towards imbuing all data conveyance with the aesthetic complexity that, we hope, will make it more effective.
My take on sonification aesthetics may seem oversimplified. But I think simplification is appropriate, as noted in the book, “Sonification aesthetics is still in its infancy as far as detailed research goes and so we are not yet at a point where we can offer a definitive set of aesthetic guidelines. It is not even known whether any such set of guidelines is possible or, for that matter, even desirable” (162). I believe this sentence gets to the heart of the reality of aesthetics. I would submit that, in fact, such guidelines are neither possible nor desirable.
In closing, this book is about a lot more than my narrow interests in the aesthetic dimension. It is a fascinating study of pragmatics and information theory. In this interdisciplinary analysis, there is, as they say, “something for everyone.” I hope a lot of people find out about this book and appreciate its complex aesthetic impact as well as its clear representation of fascinating data.