PORTFOLIO : MIT	[ Prev | Next ]

PROJECT: Data Stylus DESCRIPTION: This project explores a means for humans to internalize complex data through real-time conversion into sound. The Data Stylus is part of an effort to manipulate the background to implement "minimum complexity living zones" where humans and digital devices peacefully coexist. A toolkit for sonification was created to enable the playing of abstract data sets producing an ambient display environment. The toolkit allows you to listen to remote data in real-time, through a conversion of certain actions into mapped MIDI events. Events are then picked up by stand alone network attached speakers. These speakers interject sound into an environment's background to be interpreted when appropriate by a human. FEATURES: Utilizes the "cocktail party effect" to interject complex information into an environment's background. Can "play" arbitrary data sequences: web server logs, mail logs, ram dumps, radio waves. Can assign semantic meaning behind auditory output, with a mapping between intensity and severity of data source -- ie "bad" things could be louder.