The New Sound Aesthetic in Digital Media
"The emergence of digital recording, synthesis and transmission, and virtual audio in particular, will fundamentally transform the relationships among sound, technology, and art only if new ways of thinking also emerge." (Kahn 14)
We must consider the conceptual dimensions of the new design space of the digital medium; the expressive range of forms and their potential to engage the human mediatic experience. The digital medium modifies the user's experience of the content via its conventions. Today we deal with visual and auditory icons - short bursts of images or sounds to identify patterns, consider instead continuous contextualized visual and auditory streams designed to stimulate and enhance the media experience and not distract or annoy. We must consider what content and forms might make auditory interactivity an attractive option. and what biasing characteristics will result and govern the form of information transmitted.
Currently the field of HCI and Psychology is concerned with the detailed study and modeling of low-level cognitive phenomenon, an inappropriate level at which to address media issues [Newell 1985]. Tim Oren says that "we should now begin thinking of the computer-human interface as a media process. This means enlarging our study to include issues like psychology of media (Kozma), evolution of genre and form, and societal implications of media biases." We need to explore the design space to overcome the technological and cognitive constraints of human audition. There needs to be an artistic integration of forms in new design spaces to provide continuous fulfilling experiences.
Advances of the new digital medium will be defined by seminal vision of those expressing themselves in ways heretofore impossible. Will progressive artists like Brian Eno, Todd Rundren, Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, and the Residents define the new forms of expression for the interactive audio medium? A number of composers have experimented with sound data in seeking new compositional methods and applications. Charles Dodge's electronic piece called "The Earth's Magnetic Field", utilized a year's worth of geophysical data to shape the sonic proportions of his composition (Oliverio 4). Inspiration can be found not only in natural phenomenon, but also deep in the human psyche. We have barely begun to consider the aesthetic representational potential of sound.
If an aesthetic experience can be developed from acoustic cues and immersion in digital media, audio would become much more prevalent. People would actually enjoy their interaction with computers, as they do with music. In a recent experiment by Sikora et al., musical vs. real-world sounds were utilized to provide auditory feedback to computer users. It was found that although real-world sounds mapped more reliably to functions, users consistently preferred musical sounds. The users reactions suggested that the real world signals were less appropriate for actual applications relative to abstract musical feedback. "It seems that aesthetics and technology have played a game of tag. We now have the technology to create any musical sound imaginable, but we are not necessarily sure what to do with these sounds..." (Oliverio 6). A new aesthetic and rhetoric of sound will inevitably evolve in digital media, and I believe that we can derive much direction and inspiration from a rhetorical perspective of sound and the experimental work of the avant-garde.