Thomas Bjørnsten

°1976
en

Thomas Bjørnsten (b. 1976) is a postdoc at the School of Culture and Communication, Aarhus University (Denmark). His research currently focuses on a three-year project (2014-17) entitled “Making sense of data - understanding digital reality through contemporary artistic practices of visualization and sonification” (http://senseofdata.dk). He is a member of the IDEAS pilot center Literature between Media and his work has otherwise been concerned with the relations and interchanges of dissimilar forms and mediums of art, investigated for instance in his PhD dissertation ”The Noise and Silence of Artefacts – Medial Passages in Sound, Literature, and Visual Art” (2013). He writes about sound, digital art, and experimental music for various magazines and journals such as Seismograf and Nutida Musik, and is co-editor of The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics (http://nsae.au.dk/the-journal/) and editor of SoundEffects – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Experience (www.soundeffects.dk).

research

research expositions

  • From Particle Data to Particular Sounds: Reflections on The Affordances of Contemporary Sonification Practices (2015) author(s): Thomas Bjørnsten published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
    This article reflects on recent notions about data sonification within sound-based experimental and artistic practices. The intention is not to survey the current state of data sonification methods and techniques as such, but rather to suggest a number of selected points of critique for addressing specific assumptions about processes and discourses related to what we may broadly refer to as sonification. Furthermore, these issues will be addressed by critically asking what we understand by “data” in the first place, as something susceptible to be turned into actual sounding material. Considering how specific discourses and cultural understandings frame contemporary notions of data, the article also includes different examples of alternative, exploratory practices. Thus, one of the aims will partly be to open up a transdisciplinary discussion about the critical affordances and potential pitfalls of data sonification seen both as an aesthetic and a knowledge-producing practice. This involves not only attention toward strictly academic and scientific settings, but also relates to how data sonification ventures are being communicated within broader societal, cultural and art institutional contexts.
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