Scott Wilson

This work for String Quartet and electronic sound develops my practice in sonification, using data from the University of Birmingham’s MEMBRA project (https://membra.info). MEMBRA identifies ways in which epigenetic ‘memory’ – in the form of changes in methylation markers on a tree’s genetic sequence – may allow trees to ‘learn’ and retain adaptations in response to stresses such as climatic warming or increased carbon dioxide. Developing the work required me to create new sonification strategies, deriving music from differences in methylation between trees and their offspring.  Of particular bioinformatic interest were ‘outlier’ changes, i.e. where differences were exceptionally large. Such changes (often orders of magnitude greater than differences normally seen) might have posed challenges to traditional parametric sonification. I thus deployed a ‘curatorial’ approach (Khosravi & Wilson 2022), musically highlighting these most salient aspects through ‘special treatment’, e.g. emphasis, extended techniques, notes outside the harmonic framework, blurring, etc. Different sonifications are adopted across the work’s five sections, with the first, last and middle parts variations on the same base approach. Throughout, a primary sonified line forms a sort of ‘cantus firmus’, which is distributed amongst the quartet, often doubling the electronics, but at times echoing, extending, etc. Interesting musical figures emerge and are picked up, demonstrating a ‘generative’ approach to sonification (ibid). The work stands as a useful model for further developments in artistic sonification techniques. On the memory of trees… was composed for the Ligeti Quartet, who premiered it in a concert in the CrossCurrents Festival (recorded for BBC broadcast), and gave a further performance at the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Bogotá. It forms part of The Memory Project collaboration involving UK and Colombian composers.

Khosravi Mardakheh, M., & Wilson, S. (2022). A strata-based approach to discussing artistic data sonification. Leonardo, 55(5), 520-524.

Composed for the Bangkok-based Taceti ensemble, this work develops two important strands in my practice research: The deployment of harmonic structures derived from instrumental multiphonics and artistic data sonification. Its harmonies are derived from multiphonics played by Taceti’s virtuoso saxophonist Pisol Manatchinapisit. Initially explored in collaborative workshops, these were later analysed and deployed in creating both the instrumental and electronic components of the work. Multiphonics are sometimes thought of as ‘chords’, but in effect have a more ‘organic’ character. Reflecting non-linearities in the acoustic response of (particularly) wind instruments, they can have a kind of fragile liveliness, evolving depending on how they are played, with different pitches and timbres emerging dynamically. Aspects of this timbral ‘roughness’, such as beating tones, inspire elements of the ensemble parts. Later in the piece, epigenetic data on ‘tree memory’ from the University of Birmingham’s MEMBRA project (https://membra.info) is sonified using the scales derived from these unique sounds in a fairly unrelenting rhythm, leading to a more ‘rocky’ and mechanistic music. MEMBRA explores how epigenetic ‘memory’ – in the form of changes in methylation markers on a tree’s genetic sequence – may allow trees to ‘learn’ and retain adaptations in response to stresses such as climatic warming or increased carbon dioxide. The piece thus brings together and further extends and refines techniques from two pieces: an earlier MEMBRA-based project On the memory of trees… (Wilson 2024) composed for the Ligeti Quartet, and my multiphonic-based bass clarinet concerto, Wild. It was premiered at IntAct 2024: Machine, Labour, Rock at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) with Piyawat Louilarpprasert conducting.

Wilson, S. (2023). Wild: Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestra. Musical Composition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0iH9ULv7vM

Wilson, S. (2024). On the memory of trees…. Musical Composition. https://youtu.be/EtAe3SD5hIA?si=pJGn1SboocrZxCP7

Sounding the Epigenome was an AHRC IAA funded project in collaboration with bioinformaticists Joe He and Marco Catoni from the University of Birmingham’s MEMBRA project, and Santiago Lozano and Jorge Garcia Moncada of the Music Department at the Universidad de Los Andes of Bogotá, Colombia. Other partners included the internationally recognised Ligeti Quartet, the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Bogotá, and 19beats_ which works to engage disadvantaged young people in Bogotá with creative and career possibilities in music. It aimed to utilise the practise of data sonification to bring awareness to and engagement with science, and through workshops and activities supporting the creation of bespoke tools and resources, to create impact for a variety of users, including artists, educators, the science interested public, and the visually-impaired.

Through the development of custom tools, and a series of workshops and collaborative sessions it achieved the following goals:

• Created a freely available web-app for data sonification, and supporting materials on epigenetics, sonification, and sound synthesis.
• Translated the interface and support materials into Spanish, increasing its potential reach and relevance. Further languages are planned, including Mandarin.
• Worked with the Technology Association of Visually Impaired People to refine the app’s interface, improving its accessibility with a particular mind to making it more useful to the visually impaired. (Sonification is of obvious interest here, not least for its potential as an alternative to data visualisation.)
• Introduced young Latin American composers to the practice of artistic data sonification and its potential for both artistic creation and engagement with science, through expert mentoring by team composers and workshops by the Ligeti Quartet
• Introduced aspiring Bogotano electronic musicians from disadvantaged backgrounds (ages ranging from older children to young adults) to the possibilities of sonification through our freely accessible web app.

Sounding the Epigenome Web-based Sonification app

Workshop with young Composers and the Ligeti Quartet

Workshop with 19beats_

Demonstrating the web app in Bogotá

Working on accessibility

Written together with my former doctoral student Milad Mardakheh Khosravi (who has been a regular collaborator in my work in this area), this article addresses a notable lacuna in the scholarly discussion surrounding artistic sonification practices. Although a number of writers have proposed language to describe this growing and evolving practice, many of the approaches taken have been contradictory in one or another aspect or verged towards the poetic to an extent that limited their usefulness. Over the past 30 years, this debate has become a rabbit hole of questions and arguments regarding the nature of music/sound-art and data sonification, of their relationships with one another, and of that of artistic sonification with data sonification as a scientific tool.

In this article we have proffered a cohesive framework to describe differing approaches to artistic sonification, using a ‘strata’ metaphor, in which each of three different approaches includes or ‘rests upon’ the preceding one. With a particular focus on explicating the extent to which the source data ‘matters’ to practitioners and audiences, we aim to bring clarity to this discussion, and enable more insightful reflections on the nature of science-art collaborations using sonification-based approaches.

DOI: 10.1162/leon_a_02257

My research in this area is informed and underpinned by my longstanding investigations into the practice of live coding. Live coding is an approach to generating music (or visuals, etc.) using generative algorithms that can be redefined while they are running. This allows for a highly flexible, if not always nimble approach to musical improvisation.

My live coding in support of sonification includes structured improvisations involving sonified data, workshops for composers and artists, and its deployment as a compositional tool. Below are some notable public activities from the REF period.

Invited talk on BEAST and my Sonification Research
12 Sept 2024
Mahidol University
Bangkok, Thailand

At Visiones Sonoras 19: Sonido, medio ambiente y cambio climático
6/03/23 → 10/03/23 Morelia, Mexico

Sounding the Data: Reflections on Working with Sonification
9 Mar 2023

Sounding the Data: Workshop on Sonification
6 Mar 2023

What if there’s nothing we can do? (9/3/23). Performance with Sonified Climate Data
9 Mar 2023