A Systemic Perspective for Sonification Aesthetics

For more than twenty-five years, the sonification field has been attempting to establish itself as a primary body of knowledge communicating through sound. Despite multiple efforts to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the subjective nature of sound, we wonder: is the tendency for dealing with such challenges through an objective, functional communication, with a single interpretation criterion, limiting the epistemic boundaries of action? How can a subjectively perceived medium such as sound be embraced in all its aesthetic dimensions? We propose a conceptual transition through the reframing of a sonification as a living system for creating aesthetic experiences. This will be achieved by drawing notions from phenomenology, embodied perception, human-computer interaction and soundscape theory. A systemic sonification distinguishes itself as an ever-evolving system built on dynamic structures that actively responds to changes in its environment and interactions from surrounding beings. Driven by a series of emerging concepts of non-linearity, networks, nested systems and intertwined relationships, the system’s resilience and adaptability grows with each interaction, recentring the human protagonist as the weaver of his/her aesthetic experience through a self-transcendent process that expands the perception field.