Ambient Chronometer - Real-time audio clock

AMBIENT CHRONOMETER: REAL-TIME AUDIO CLOCK

ABSTRACT
Ambient Chronometer is an interactive real-time data sonification which maps hours, minutes, and seconds to ambient musical sounds, providing an aesthetically engaging context for determining the exact time using purely auditory cues. Rather than a demand-based system in which the user triggers a voiced announcement in a given language, Ambient Chronometer provides a continuous environment of sound, in which a user subliminally or actively monitors the progression of time while performing everyday activities. Rather than being a purely utilitarian endeavor, Ambient Chronometer follows the rich cultural progression of analog clock making, in which the aesthetics of the work weigh equally with the functionality, and the time is determined through interpreting a series of abstracted frameworks.

1. GOALS
Ambient Chronometer seeks to simultaneously merge an aesthetic experience of passive time progression, with an active analytical interpretation of the current time, using audio as the only sensory input. Much like the traditional analog clock can be shifted into the perceptual background, yet remain available in a room (or on an arm) as a foreground information display, so Ambient Chronometer can function in either of these modes. Even if a perceiver of the work did not know or care to interpret the tones produced as being indicative of a given time, the work still has value as an aesthetically engaging generative composition, which has a full 24 hours worth of unique content.

2. INFORMATIONAL CONTEXT
Several recent works display time-specific data through a sonification process. The New York Times' Amanda Cox created a data sonification of completion times for speed-based events in the 2010 Winter Olympics, by plotting the difference in finishing time of each participant after the first place finisher [1]; this work correlates sporting event time to musical event time by a direct 1 to 1 mapping. Other works use pitch as an additional variable, to indicate varying amplitudes, such as David Worrall's "Market Sonifications", which maps trading time to musical time, and net returns of a given market index to pitch [2]. The author is unaware of other sonifications that map time to pitch, as a method for contextualizing the timing of a given data point.

3. TECHNIQUES
The notes of the diatonic Ionian musical scale provide a convenient basis on which to build this audio clock, as notes are commonly numbered 1-12 over the course of an octave and a half, which directly parallels the twelve-step division of a traditional clock. Also, given that a clock has 60 minutes and 60 seconds represented in the same radial space, a tempo of 60 beats per minute is a convenient way to divide a minute worth of time into twelve five-second measures, directly paralleling the twelve five-increment divisions of a traditional clock. A baseline pitch is given as a reference point, and additional tones representing hours, minutes, and seconds play during the course of a five-second measure; and in order to determine the time, the user counts the number of steps the hour, minute, and second tones (in octaves 1, 2, and 3, respectively) are above the reference pitch (in octave 0). This work was programmed and implemented in Max/MSP using standard objects and extensions.

4. FUTURE DIRECTION
This system lends itself to several other frameworks, as well, including variances in the representation (such as a chromatic twelve-tone version, or an un-pitched rhythm-only version), and variances in the purpose (such as for countdown timers, or vehicle instrumentation).

5. REFERENCES
[1] A. Cox, "Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical," The New York Times, retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/26/sports/olympics/20100226-olysym..., February 26, 2010.
[2] D. Worrall, "Market Sonifications," retrieved from http://www.sonification.com.au/markets/, August 2009.

Created by Todd Spencer in Max/MSP

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• data
• sonification
• dataviz
• information
• visualization
• real-time
• clock
• sound
• audio
• music
• max/msp