Open Data as Music Material

Dr Diana Salazar, City University London | Kathyrn Corrick, Open Data Institute

What are the creative and social implications of sourcing, sampling and sonifying open data in the composition of new music?

In Conversation
Three examples of projects by Diana Salazar Some thoughts on composing with data Discussion

663307Sand all was white

Diana Salazar and Sari Lievonen

 Exploration in extreme

environments, location and tracking

Overhead camera data on

performer position
Two tier sound composition
The data possibilities today?

663307Sa nd all was white

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKToDAFvunA

663307Sand all was white (The Arches, Glasgow)

Spindlesongs
An 8-channel sound installation, made possible with kind assistance from the National Trust and the North-West Sound Archive

 8-channel sound Sampling of audio archives,

machinery and interviews

What is data? The ethics of

sound data.
The potential of heritage

spaces

Spindlesongs

Audio: https://soundcloud.com/diana_salazar/spindlesongs-installation

Corporeal Cartography
Maria Salgado Llopis & Diana Salazar

 Type and placement of sensors Data mapping

Bodycentric space, the

performance space and imagined sonic spaces

Legibility of data mapping to

sound Corporeal Cartography

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4pDxE8_8A0

Corporeal Cartography: demonstration

Why Use Data?

Increasing accessibility of data Ease of manipulation in a variety of ways Marrying the conceptual and creative Generating weight and wider significance An ideaa starting point

Process and Practice

1. Use of data in raw form 2. Translating data a continuum 3. Use of data as concept or extra-musical idea

What is the composer trying to achieve? Aims may inform data processes

Compositional Hazards(!)
Where is the meaning? Extreme abstraction of data as sound; the bland

sonification
Issues of authenticity Data as gimmick

Thinking beyond the data?

The Potential of Spaces

Physical data People and presence The acoustic signature Contextual data The ethics of (unaware) audience monitoring and

participation?

www.dianasalazar.co.uk www.city.ac.uk/music