Towards a Definition of Autographic Sonifications

Recent paper, spearheaded by Sara Lenzi on the question of autographic sonifications.

Paper presented at the 2023 DRS conference.

Lenzi, Sara, Paolo Ciuccarelli, and Dietmar Offenhuber. 2024. “Towards a Definition of Autographic Sonifications: Listening as an Act of Knowledge.” https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2024/researchpapers/200/.

image: ‘The End of the War’, a graphic recording on photographic paper of the minute before and minute after the cessation of hostilities that ended the First World War at 11am on 11 November 1918 (Imperial War Museum Collection).

Abstract:

In recent years, sonification as a method to analyze, represent, and communicate data through sound has grown significantly, demonstrating a diversity of purposes, users, and topics. In data journalism, education, art, or data monitoring, sound is used to both support and engage experts, researchers, and the general public with a broad range of scientific and social phenomena.

As the field progresses toward shared design and evaluation processes, new practices appear to be emerging that place the listener at the center. By analyzing recent cases from the Data Sonification Archive, this paper proposes a definition of autographic sonification as a self-encoding process in which the act of listening becomes central to making sense of complex phenomena.

Keywords: data sonification; autographic design; autographic visualization; human-data interaction.

download the paper here