Azimut mit Pommes! Some prickly Predicaments in Sonification and How to Use Sound to 'Display' Data
Inaugural Lecture: Professor Paul Vickers, Professor of Computer Science and Sonification
What is Sonification? Sonification is the use of audio to
communicate data (like a Geiger counter for data). Up till now, our
understanding of the roles played by embodied perception, spatial
considerations, and aesthetics in our listening to, and perception of,
sonification have been very limited.
Professor Paul Vickers’ talk will outline
some of the main challenges in designing effective sonifications. Drawing on
experience from an interdisciplinary effort to study sonification through the
lenses of computer science, ethnography, music composition, and aesthetics, he
will share some of the latest insights into how people listen to sonifications
and how this understanding can inform the design of the next generation of
these ‘auditory displays’.
About the Speaker
Professor
Paul Vickers is Professor of Computer Science and Sonification in the
Department of Computer & Information Sciences at Northumbria University. In
2022 he was appointed president of the International Community for Auditory
Display (ICAD) for a three-year term. In this role, Professor Vickers will work
with academics and organisations to conduct and present research on the use of
sound to display and communicate data, monitor systems in real time, and
improve user interaction with computers and virtual reality systems. The real-world
impact of these applications is wide-ranging, from helping visually impaired
people to assimilate data to monitoring threats and network traffic at a
security operations centre.
Prior
to joining Northumbria in 2001, Professor Vickers worked for over a decade in
the School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences at Liverpool John Moores
University and also worked in industry in software development.
His research interests include
Sonification and Auditory Display, Visualisation, Network Security, Cyber
security and situational awareness, and Aesthetic Computing.
