Interactivity has become ambient. Individual people are no longer isolated resulting from the scaling up of networks and the scaling down of the apparatus for transmission and reception. Various communication devices always carried are continuously emitting and receiving information. This continuous data flow is both invisible and often, by the majority of people, unknown. Today’s hand-held devices that can be seen as extensions of the human body allow ubiquitous, inescapable network interconnectivity.

The Sonification of You aims to make this data flow ‘visible’ to those people carrying the active devices. Our equipment will passively scan the various radio spectrum frequencies used by mobile phone devices, Bluetooth, WiFi networks, and others used by mobile devices, within a given space. The data information then represented by assigned audio sounds that will indicate activity, distance, and strength of signals.

Drawing on methods for monitoring large computer networks, the result is to create a background ‘sound’ for a room that is representational of the people, and their devices, present. The invisible become audible and therefore visible. Allowing individuals to become aware of their constant connectivity.

Martin John Callanan
Honorary Research Assistant
The Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art.