Interactively Determined Generative Sound Design for Sensate Environments

Sensate environments provide a medium for humans to interact with space. This interaction includes ambient/passive triggering, performative artistic interaction and physical sensate spaces used for games and interactive entertainment. This paper examines sonic representations of data (sonification) activated by interaction, shaped by user activities and social environmental behaviours. Generative art forms (genetic algorithms and evolutionary design systems) provide methodologies for creating new material. This paper addresses ways in which generative material can relate to representation and experience in a recognisable construct. The purpose of site-specific generative sound and sonification in intelligent buildings is to provide responsive feedback for human participants: sonic indicators of social activity. The affects of the environment influence the generative process – the number of occupants, busy-ness (motion), environmental measurements (e.g. temperature, position relative to specific locations in the space) or direct controls – proximity to sensor walls, movement on pressure sensitive flooring. An examination of comprehensible correspondences between sonic parameters and socio-spatial behaviour articulates a methodology for sonification. The central concern – to generate sound/music clearly indicative of its social context – is applicable in virtual environments as well as wireless sensate physical spaces. Sensate spaces are growing and cutting-edge phenomena at this time that require constructs for expedient computational processing and meaningful sonification of the vast stream of sensed data.