WG4 Minutes Paris 22/10/2007

WG4 "Sonification" COST-IC0601: Sonic Interaction Design (SID) Minutes of the Meeting of WG4 "Sonification" on 2007-10-22, 15-18h at IRCAM, Paris

List of Attendees

Eoin Brazil, Thomas Hermann (chair), Nicolas Misdariis, Rod Murray-Smith, John Williamson, Yon Visell.

We discussed the procedure to add working group members. Rod supported Thomas' suggestion to have associated WG members, and seeded the idea to integrate less official WG members than possible to explicitly profit from "on average" one invited expert from the associated members. He furthermore suggested to select members according to sharpen the focus we have in the WG towards excitory closed-loop interaction and mobile sonification apps.

Thomas listed all potential working group members that have been discussed in previous e-mails together with their core skill they bring in to SID. He suggested that we all reconsider the rank assignments in light of the recent developments (SID paper, Glasgow WG meeting discussions). Finally we will use the refined list to ask the first 3 members to become an official WG member. This procedure was generally approved. We decided to add Nicolas Misdariis on this list.

1. Introduction of new members

Nicolas Misdariis introduced himself as Researcher in Perception Design with knowledge in Sound Design and Sound Synthesis (Physical Modelling, using MAX/MSP under the IRCAM software "Modalys". He explained Sound Diffusion which is one of the fields of his expertise, and Spatial Additive Synthesis. His work is related to the CLOSED project. He explains his car blinker sound designs. He is also familiar with statistics and procedures for evaluation of passive sound perception (turning towards evaluation of interaction at the moment).

2. Approving the minutes

The minutes, as available on http://sid-sonification.wikispaces.com/Meetings have been approved unanimously. Thomas notes minor changes in the version that has been uploaded to www.cost-sid.org.

3. Status Review previous ToDos / New Actions

• Eoin will reestablish web services and discuss issues how to roughly structure the website at cost-sid.org for WG4
• Eoin will transfer the public content currently integrated in the wikispaces wiki to the cost-sid.org website
• Rod will rewrite the mission section so that it is more compact and better readable for newcomers
• all: add projects into the Projects section of WG4-site, in less verbose style as the already entered projects
• Thomas will add some bad/good examples to the website and make these examples available for the SIA work
• Thomas check the deliverables for 1y
• Aside on the efforts on activities (documentation, case annotation, ...) in relation to our concrete interests in the project.
• Collection of short video snippets documenting interaction with audible results

4. Web

We will integrate the already existing content into the cost-sid.org site fot the reason of consistency and coherence. We will nonetheless setup a wiki as strictly private space to exchange work-relevant information such as papers in progress, photos, infos about meeting options, etc.

5. SID CHI - paper, magazine paper and other publications

• Rod comments on "curiosity-driven" and opportunistic approaches to generating publications
• Eoin comments returning to the (theoretically-driven) question of defining sonification
• Thomas question about developing the CHI paper
• Discussion of implementing the Sonic Interaction Atlas to a level suitable for a more complete version of the paper
• Question about level and type of proof of concept implementation may be most interested
• Include everyday interactions and designed (SID) cases
• Rod: Comment on their work relating movement primitives to dynamic metaphors. Yon comment on related work ongoing in CLOSED.
• John: What are the tasks for which people might need the database, and what attributes are needed to be able to let them work with it
• Rod: One possible idea to look at this as exploration of different use scenarios for such a database. Try to articulate how this could be used for different users, and gain feedback from the workshop.
• Eoin: feels that he might be able to implement such a prototype at a functional level.
• Thomas: asks Eoin to collect ideas and put on website
• Nicolas comments on Ircam studies on actions and kitchen sounds in CLOSED
• Rod: Remarks on framing the description of the SIA as exploratory prototypes, without too much discussion
• Thomas: suggests the collection of minimally annotated examples

The SID-CHI paper needs more work. To clarify what needs to be done, we decided

• (TODO: all) to recheck the paper, sending comments to all (or putting them in our private wiki.
• all of us: circulate comments, make sure that it comes across as exploratory prototype
• Thomas: send paper to Nicolas

6. Sonic Interaction Atlas - next steps

Rod argues for a bottom-up approach to implement research that allows us to do what we are keen on. We clarified that the paper (if accepted by SID-CHI) would be candidate for a journal special issue. We all expressed the need and utility of having items to enter to the SIA. Thomas stresses that SIA should contain not only sonification designs, but lots of everyday interactions. The map should be browseable via jokers so that all entries that match a pattern are highlighted or should in a topologically ordered way. Rod suggested to list the interaction for the entries (as interaction primitives, such as rotation, translation, etc.) and also the task is relevant. We all arrived at the list of aspects to be specified for sonic interactions as context, data, task, interaction, sound, intention So far, all these fields would be described by free text, as short as possible, as long as necessary. all: to suggest entries for this map, to be collected on the wiki Nicolas: to send a reference on kitchen interactions example considered in CLOSED Eoin volunteered to demonstrate some prototype implementations of SIA using modern web-technology named Ruby on Rails for the backend side, with potentially Flex and AIR (http://www.flex888.com/2007/09/20/10-flex-and-ruby-on-rails-integration-examples.html) for the front ends.

7. Transversal Communication with other WGs

Thomas suggested a transversal communication with WG 2 (subject to change on demand). Possible ways could be

• to add/send a 'spy' to other ones meetings (solicit feedback on text, present something and elicit quick discussion)
• to have the first 20mins of WG meetings for a presentation of WG4 to WG2 (suggested by Eoin), asking them for comments from their perspective.

8. Winter Training School

• We discussed Thomas's idea to develop the Biomedical Data Sonification block course in Bielefeld into a Training school for SID.
• Thomas explained that basically a 2d program is envisaged, with the following likely topics
  • Introduction to sonification techniques (audification, parameter mapping, model-based sonification, auditory icons)
  • experimentation with techniques using sc template code and prepared data sets
  • introduction to EEG signals and other biomedical data type
  • practical presentation of different EEG sonification techniques developed by Hermann/Baier
  • experiments with given program templates and data sets.
• Thomas: determine possible dates for the training program
• Thomas: to determine possible budget and size of the program
• others: to think about possible course offers to complement the winter training program
• Eoin could talk about auditory icons
• Thomas suggested to ask Andrew Diey to give a condensed course on Sound Design procedures
• Such blocks could be interleaved and give reason for a 3rd day. On this day, various attendees expressed interest in social activity such as a dinner in the castle, etc.
• We could use about 10000 EUR (budget to be clarified by Davide) to realize the program
• Budget could be used
  • to pay for lectures
  • to pay for attendees (maybe a fixed rate for better calculation)
• Procedures for how to organize and execute the WTS need to be clarified. Thomas asked for help in WG4 on any questions.

8. Miscellaneous

We approached WG2 and talked about data. Vesa Valimäki took the data description categories and promised to send their case data to us if finished.

9. Next meeting

The next meeting will probably be together with the Winter training school in Bielefeld. We did alternatively discuss a Working group meeting in Berlin, possibly in TU or Telekom, to faciliate the traveling burden of envisaged WG delegates. Both location and date need to be determined via e-mail.

The meeting finishes at 6 p.m.