Representation, Complexity and Control: Three Aspects of Technology-Based
Sonic Art
by Jøran Rudi
In this chapter, Rudi identifies a digital dynamic of data convergence into binary representation. This is a mechanism by which discrete numbers within digital media replace continuous signals in analogue media, and content becomes available for mathematical operations and ‘filters’ our experience. He locates this dynamic in binary representation in sound art, for example soundscape recordings combining digital, social and biological processes, and in digital art that appropriates other kinds of data, for example sensor data from the environment. Rudi stresses how the mechanization of sound as data allows for its combination with other kinds of material data, which increasingly characterizes ‘sonification’ (representation of data by non-musical sonic means) and which opens up new avenues of complexity, control and conceptual developments in sonic art – allowing for stronger connections to the ‘real’ world, which might be a prerequisite for developing new forms of ‘nearness’ in our landscape of make-believe and increasing behavioral adaptation
to technological environments.