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12 September 2014, Holbeck Cinema, Department of Theatre, Film and Television

The Conference on Sonification of Health and Environmental Data is funded by Wellcome Trust and Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders (C2D2) at the University of York. It is organised by Department of Theatre, Film and TV and the Stockholm Environment Institute of the University of York.

This Conference will bring together experts in the fields of sonification, sound design, health sciences and environmental science to evaluate and discuss novel sonic ways to engage with data.

Sonification is concerned with displaying data in sonic form so that listeners (experts and/or non-experts) can perceive and engage with the structures and the properties of the data set and their meaning.

Sound can be a particularly effective way of displaying and exploring big data, monitoring processes and representing complex information in creative and engaging ways. Sound, an inherently time-based display, is particularly well suited to representing time-based data (for example, the evolution of an environmental phenomenon in time) as well as data gathered in real-time (for example, a muscle performing an action can be sonified as an auditory feedback).

Sound can alert a listener to anomalies and new events when the visual sense is occupied in other tasks, and large amounts of data can be portrayed rapidly in one single rhythmically and timbrally unique sound.

In addition, sound can help represent correlations and links between different data sets, something highly desirable in specific cases when health data is strongly related to environmental data.

The Conference will include guest speakers, selected presentations and posters, and music/sonification performances.

SoniHED Conference poster (PDF , 1,095kb)

SoniHED Conference Proceedings (PDF , 5,768kb) (also see below under 'Conference Programme and Proceedings' for access to individual papers)

Speakers include:

Dr Andy Hunt (Electronics Department, University of York)

Andy is the co-founder, with Thomas Hermann, of the Interactive Sonification Workshop series (Bielefeld 2004, York, 2007, Stockholm 2010 and Fraunhofer, Erlangen 2013). He co-edited The Sonification Handbook with Thomas Hermann and John Neuhoff. His research interests include human-computer interaction for audio and music, interactive sonification, and new musical instruments.

Prof. Roberto Bresin (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)

Roberto's main research interests are expressive music performance, sound in interaction, sonification and emotion in sound and music performance. Roberto has been a member of many sonification-related projects including SOM on the sonification of human movements and SONEA on the sonification of elite athletes.

Dr Kevin Hicks and Dr Patrick Bueker (Stockholm Environment Institute)

Kevin is an expert on air pollution impacts to terrestrial ecosystems, especially nitrogen. Patrick is an ecologist with expertise in air pollution impacts on plants. Kevin and Patrick will give a joint presentation on short-lived climate pollutants and their impact on human health.

Prof. Tim Croudace (Health Sciences)

Tim Croudace is Professor of Psychometric Epidemiology at the Department of Health Sciences (University of York).
Tim's research interests span two related disciplines: epidemiology and psychometrics. Tim combines these interests to produce innovative research using state of the art longitudinal data-analysis and measurement theory from the item response model family. Tim together with Dr Jan Stochl (Health Sciences, York) and Alastair Scott (YCCSA Summer Student, York) collaborated with artist Mark Fell to create the installation Sonic uncertainties, the multidimensional case that will be premiered at SoniHED.

Dr Guillaume Lemaitre (Ircam, Sound Perception and Design group, Paris, France)

Guillaume’ research interests include auditory perception and cognition, auditory neurosciences, and applications to sound design and product sound quality. He has worked with the department of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA), the Interaction group the University IUAV of Venice (Italy), and Genesis Acoustics, a company that specializes in the sound quality of industrial products in Aix-en-Provence (France). Over the years, Guillaume has been involved in several projects with Ircam. His current European-funded project (SkAT-VG) aims at developing sound sketching tools using vocal and gestural imitations of sounds.