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ICAD 2006 Concert
Call for Sonifications

Title : Global Music - The World by Ear
A Concert of Sonifications at ICA London

Concert Chair: Alberto de Campo
http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/research/imc/icad2006/concert.php

The 'Global Music - The World by Ear' Concert will take place on June  
21st, 2006, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA - http:// 
www.ica.org.uk) London, as part of the International Conference on  
Auditory Display in London from 20-23 June 2006 (ICAD 2006 - http:// 
www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/icad2006/). It is open to the general public and  
will be promoted and listed by the ICA.

The concert program will be sonifications based on global data. A  
basic dataset serving as a starting point for these sonifications is  
provided and you are invited to participate by submitting a piece of  
music driven by this data and your chosen additions to it.

Motivation
Werner Pirchner, Ein halbes Doppelalbum, 1973: "The military costs  
every person still alive roughly as much as half a kilogram of bread  
per day." <http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/icad2006/ 
EinHalbesKilogrammBrot.mp3>

Global data are ubiquitous - one finds them in every newspaper, and  
they cover a range of themes, from global warming to increasing  
poverty, from individual purchasing power to the ageing of the  
world's population. Obviously these data are of a social nature: They  
describe specific aspects (e.g. ecological or economic) of the  
environment in which societies exist, which taken together determine  
culture, i.e. the way people live.
Rising awareness of these global interdependencies has led both to  
fear and concerns (e.g. captured in the notion of the risk society,  
see Beck 1986, Giddens 1990, 1999), as well as hopes for eventual  
positive consequences of globalization. Along with developments like  
the scientization of politics (see Drori et al 2003), this growing  
understanding of global issues has re-defined the context of the  
political discourse in modern societies: As modern societies claim to  
steer their own course based on self-observation by means of data,   
an information feedback loop is realized.
Alternative choices of data that are important to consider, which  
data should be set in relation to each other, and a consideration of  
how to perceptualize these data choices meaningfully can enrich this  
discourse.

Closing the feedback loop by informing society about its current  
state and its development is a task that both scientists and artists  
have responded to, and this is the key point of this call:

* You can contribute to the discourse by perceptualizing aspects of  
world societal developments,
* search for data that concern interesting questions, and devise  
strategies for investigating them, and
* demonstrate that sound can communicate information in an accessible  
way for the general public.


Constraints
As a common reference point, we have compiled a basic dataset which  
includes 190 countries with geographical data (capital location,  
area), population numbers, and are extended by several basic social  
indicators such as GDP, access to sanitation and drinking water, and  
life expectancy.
Using this reference dataset is mandatory: All submissions must  
include countries, capital locations, population and area data. This  
dataset can be extended with extra dimensions, and in fact this is  
strongly encouraged; the extensions included in the reference dataset  
(such as GDP) are given as examples only. Easily accessible sources  
for possible extensions to the dataset are given in the Resources  
section; if you need advice on these, please feel free to ask us:  
<icad.concert -AT- dcs.qmul.ac.uk>

Submissions should last between 3-10 minutes.


Likely Questions
Missing values for some countries and some dimensions are to be  
expected, and this is a common problem in social data. Pragmatic  
handling of some sort will be necessary here.
The countries/regions represented have very different sizes and  
population numbers; one result we hope for is that very different  
strategies for representing these frame dimensions will be applied in  
the submissions.
Our reference data set is a snapshot of the year 2005; participants  
may choose to introduce time and to explore development issues.
If you are unsure whether your idea for a submission would comply  
with the rules, please feel free to ask us: <icad.concert -AT-  
dcs.qmul.ac.uk>



Data Background and Resources
The reference dataset <http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/icad2006/ 
ICADConcertData.csv> has been compiled from official UN statistics  
and the CIA World Factbook (links below).
There are a number of openly accessible resources which can be used  
to extend the basic dataset:

1. Social Indicators of the United Nations Statistics Division
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/default.htm
This webpage offers first insights in the distribution of some  
selected indicators. Though these indicators are not very highly  
sophisticated, the advantage is that the files comprise data from  
almost all nations represented in the UNO.
The Statistics Division also offers other data files to be found via  
their main pages:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/default.htm
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp

2. Statistics Portal of the OECD
http://www.oecd.org/statsportal/0,2639,en_2825_293564_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
The OECD offers a lot of interesting data, e.g. patent statistics or
statistics on the purchasing power, but their files are often  
restricted to member-states. However, missing data might be found via  
webportals of other national or even international statistics  
organizations.

3. CIA Fact Book
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
Offers a multi-faceted collection of facts for more than 220  
countries/regions. This factbook might also be used for getting  
additional background information on specific countries in the course  
of working on a sonification/submission.

4. International and National Statistics Agencies
Of course, there are a lot of international and national  
organizations hosting databases. Though they might restrict their  
data sets to certain nations, they often provide rather sophisticated  
indicators and measures. Provided that the indicators follow the same  
definition (which were first defined by the UN in 1989), it is also  
possible to merge data from different organizations. Just to mention  
some of them:
- EUROSTAT, the statistics agency of the European Union: http:// 
epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/
- UK National Statistics: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
- STAT-US/Internet, which concentrates on economic data: http:// 
www.stat-usa.gov/
- Stanford University Library provides a long list of links to  
African statistical bodies: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/ 
africa/statistics.htm
- UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund : http://www.unicef.org/ 
infobycountry/
5. The economic historian Angus Maddison has spent decades  
researching, reconstructing and estimating basic population and  
economic data for the past 200 years in his book: The World Economy:  
A Millennial Perspective, published by the OECD Development Centre in  
2001.
http://www.theworldeconomy.org/publications/worldeconomy/


Submission Details
*	Panel
	An international panel of sonification experts, composers, and  
sociologists will select 8-12 entries for the concert, based on  
scientific and aesthetic criteria.

*	Deadline
	All submissions must be uploaded or received by mail by April 30th  
2006.

*	Submission Checklist
	Valid submissions must include:
		A set of soundfiles (details below),
		a short paper (2-4 pages) documenting your sonification,
		and your contact information (name, e-mail);
		you can submit either on CD by mail, or upload
		as one .zip file by ftp.

*	Submission Formats and Technical Description
	The sound system provided will be a symmetrical ring of 8 speakers.
	The submission format is WAV soundfiles at a samplerate of 44.1 kHz,  
16 bit linear.
	You should submit 8 files spatialized for a symmetrical ring of 8  
speakers,
	numbered <YourNameOrNames1>.wav, < YourNameOrNames1 >.wav, etc.

	Feel free to include any other information of relevance to the  
technical realisation/rendering of your submission, and when in  
doubt, contact us at: <icad.concert -AT- dcs.qmul.ac.uk>.
	
*	Documentation of Sonification Details:
	A short paper on context and background of your data choices,
	mapping choices, strategies, etc. etc.
	Please use the ICAD06 paper template at
	<http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/research/imc/icad2006/submit.php#papers>
	
*	In case your submission needs to be accompanied by visual cues,  
screen projection can be made available. Please include information  
on why your submission benefits substantially from visual support,  
and technical details.

*	Participants will be asked to make a short statement (3-5 min)
	on their work within the concert, also with screen projection if  
desired.


	Send CD-ROM submissions to:
	Alberto de Campo,
	Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) Graz,
	Inffeldgasse 10,
	A-8010 Graz, Austria
	
	For online submissions, an ftp site is available at
	<ftp://sonenvir.at>.
	Participants will not be able to see (their own or other)  
submissions. Please send an e-mail to us at <icad.concert -AT-  
dcs.qmul.ac.uk> when you have submitted, so we can check your  
submission and send a confirmation e-mail as soon as possible.


Call and data edited by Alberto de Campo, Christian Daye, and  
Christopher Frauenberger.


References:
Beck, Ulrich (1986): Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere  
Moderne. Frankfurt am Main.
	English edition: 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. New  
Delhi.
Drori, Gili S., John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, Evan Schofer  
(2003): Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and  
Globalization. Stanford.
Giddens, Anthony (1990): The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford.
Giddens, Anthony (1999) : Runaway World. A series of lectures on  
globalisation for the BBC, available at	http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/ 
english/static/events/reith_99/


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