The Open Sonifications Manifesto

This is a manifesto in search of many sonifications. We invite you to use it as a map to explore the varied worlds of data + sound.

Core Ideas

Sonification is not one thing, it is a diversity of things.

We embrace and encourage curious approaches to exploring the world through data + sound.

The act of making a sonification is just as, if not more, important than the final outcome.

We seek to explore the edges of what is possible with sonification by challenging and expanding existing conventions about:

WHY we might sonify something (play, explore, feel, tinker)

WHAT we can DO with it (intention, process, meaning)

WHO gets to do things with it (anyone and everyone! no training required)

What counts as VALID SOUND (found sounds! weird sounds! ugly sounds! speech!!!)

What counts as VALID DATA (subjective data, personal data, the world is our dataset)

What TOOLS we can use (our bodies, our emotions, our social connections)

In addition to providing analytic insight (traditional goal), we acknowledge that sonifications can have other goals (open goals) that are just as meaningful.

They can:

• Transform us and the way we see the world
• Prompt us to examine our assumptions about how the world works
• Engage us in activism or political/social commentary (have a point of view)
• Allow us to express ourselves and to understand data through our bodies

We Love

• Decentralisation
• Expressiveness
• Performance
• Participation
• Community
• Danceability
• Approachability
• Raw energy
• Plural perspectives
• Making as a way of knowing

We offer Open Sonifications as a counter-approach to dominant sonification strategies but believe they can (and should) co-exist. We don’t wish to obliterate the status quo, but we do wish to extend it.

Get in touch with us at opensonifications@gmail.com

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