THE SOUND OF DATA

Join us on Sunday May 1st, 2022, from 14h00-19h30 at Rockhal for our “Science meets Music” launch event. There will be a science and music fair for families, kids, and adults from 14h00 to 18h00 in Rockhal’s Foyer, where you will be able to discover the many connections between science and music through interactive workshops and performances. In parallel, the Rockhal’s Club, will offer a programme which is more geared towards scientists, musicians, and artists from 14h00 until 19h30. Highlights include a keynote by cyborg-artist Neil Harbisson, a lecture-performance by Dr. Valery Vermeulen about data sonification, as well as a panel discussion about “sonification – creative ways for scientists, musicians and artists to work with data”, and much more. The whole event is free, so no need to buy a ticket. Foods and drinks are available on site. Just come and join us for this thrilling event!

Did you ever wonder how the universe would sound like if you could hear it, what sounds can be derived from our financial markets and if it is possible to make music with them and if so how this can be practically done? In this workshop, led by Dr. Valery Vermeulen, you will learn all about it and much more ! Central theme of the workshop is how abstract scientific data such as for example data originating from (deep)space, from our solar system, or data coming from financial systems can be used in an innovative way to compose, perform music or create multimedia installations. In this first session you learn to get acquainted with the basic principles of data sonification and interactive sound synthesis and sound design. Data that will be used in the first day is static data. Using Max4Live every student learns to build her, his or their own synthesizer. Subsequently as a student you 'll learn to enable the synthesizer to be connected to various external data sources.

Central theme of the workshop is how abstract scientific data such as for example data originating from (deep)space, from our solar system, or data derived from financial systems can be used in an innovative way to compose and perform music, or to create multimedia installations. To this end the focus will be put onto the several creative practices that make this possible: data sonification, interactive sound synthesis and algorithmic music composition. With data sonification we can understand the rapidly expanding field of transforming any given numerical abstract data stream into sound. Interactive sound synthesis on the other hand encompasses all synthesis techniques where the generated sound is being influenced by one or more external data sources. The workshop is built around the use of online data and the use of the techniques for musical artistic purposes.

This conference, co-organised with Luxembourg’s National Institute of statistics and economic studies (STATEC) will see experts and practitioners discuss the challenges and opportunities around innovation in data modelling and popularization, data journalism and data-driven communication. And in this context investigate what data sonification and data visualization can bring to the table. Keynote speakers Duncan Geere and Miriam Quick, co-founders of Loudnumbers.net, will start off the event with their presentation: “A Sonic Vocabulary: Turning Data into Sound and Music with Loud Numbers.” The keynote will be followed by a panel discussion and a Q/A session with the public. Panel discussion participants: Tom Haas (Head of Unit, Statec), Emma Schymanski (PI, Environmental Cheminformatics, LCSB), Miriam Quick (Data Journalist, Researcher, Author), Jamie Perera (Composer, Producer, Sound Artist), Lara Schwenner (science journalist, Quarks/WDR). Simultaneous translation into French provided.

Venue : Rockhal Club - Standing / Doors : 19h30 / Support : Valery Vermeulen & more! “Visualization” has long been used to present all kinds of data. Information is translated into size, shape, colour, and more. “Sonification” is basically visualizing for the ears. You take a data set, some kind of information, and create sounds with it. The “Sound of Data” project will be using scientific data – traffic data, historical data, data from crowdsourcing art and 3D body scan data – to generate sounds, which will then be used by musicians to compose new tracks and be performed live on stage on the 3rd of December 2022...

(N.B. registration required due to limited capacity!) Program of the evening: 17:45 – Welcome by the four project partners // 18:05 – Fireside Chat with Max Cooper, followed by Q/A // 18:40 – Roundtable Discussion with Valery Vermeulen, Pol Belardi, Catherine Elsen, Djamila Aouada and Oliver Glassl // 19:25 – Final words by Nancy Braun, General Director of Esch2022, and by the project leader // 19h30 – Networking drinks