ISon 2007

International Interactive Sonification Meeting
(Human Interaction with Auditory Displays)
organised by Andy Hunt and Thomas Hermann
3rd February 2007,
University of York, UK

www.interactive-sonification.org

The ISon ’07 meeting is the 2nd International meeting on Interactive Sonification, following the initial ISon workshop held in Bielefeld.

The meeting offers the chance:

  • to meet experts in sonification, 
  • to present and demonstrate own research, 
  • to strengthen your european networking in sonification research, and 
  • to learn about new exciting trends. 

Additional goals of the meeting are:

  • to relate research on the topic of gestural control of auditory displays to interactive sonification
  • to survey the requirements for building Interactive Sonification systems
  • to establish a network of interested researchers in the field and exchange experiences

High quality will be assured by a peer-reviewing process, and besides a web publication we might decide to transform the proceedings into a special journal issue, as in the 1st ISon meeting, see IEEE Multimedia Special Issue on Interactive Sonification.

About ISon

Sonification & Auditory Displays are increasingly becoming an established technology for exploring data, monitoring complex
processes, or assisting exploration and navigation of data spaces.
Sonification addresses the auditory sense by transforming data into sound, allowing the human user to get valuable information from data by using their natural listening skills. The main differences of sound displays over visual displays are that
sound can:

  • Represent frequency responses in an instant (as timbral characteristics)
  • Represent changes over time, naturally
  • Allow microstructure to be perceived
  • Rapidly portray large amounts of data
  • Alert listener to events outside the current visual focus
  • Holistically bring together many channels of information

Auditory displays typically evolve over time since sound is inherently a temporal phenomenon. Interaction thus becomes an integral part of the process in order to select, manipulate, excite or control the display, and this has implications for the interface between humans and computers. In recent years it has become clear that there is an important need for research to address the interaction with auditory displays more explicitly. nteractive Sonification is the specialized research topic concerned with the use of sound to portray data, but where there is a human being at the heart of an interactive control loop. Specifically it deals with:

  • interfaces between humans and auditory displays,
  • mapping strategies and models for creating coherency between action and reaction (e.g. acoustic feedback, but also combined with haptic or visual feedback)
  • perceptual aspects of the display (how to relate actions and sound, e.g. cross-modal effects, importance of synchronisation)
  • applications of Interactive Sonification
  • evaluation of performance, usability and multi-modal interactive systems including auditory feedback

Although we apply a spotlight on particular situations where there is real-time interaction with sonification systems, the usual community for exploring all aspects of auditory display is ICAD .

Satellite Events

As a satellite meeting to this workshop, a Management Commitee meeting of the EU COST action 287, “ConGAS – Gestural Controlled Audio Systems” takes place on the 2nd February 2007 (starting Friday at 14:00h (2.00pm))

The participation of many international experts to the workshop is expected, and promises that the workshop will be a highly
productive event.

Proceedings/Publication

The peer-reviewed publications will be published on the web site. We will consider to developing the web proceedings into a special issue of an international journal, as we did in the previous workshop.

Programme

Saturday, 3th February 2007

09:00Registration
09:30Welcome addresses (Hunt/Hermann)
09:35Keynote: Mikael Fernström
10:00-12:00Paper Sessions (each 20 mins = 15+5)
(chair: Andy Hunt)
10:00Till Bovermann: Juggling Sounds
10:20Daniel Arfib: Visual textures seen as sonograms. (Is it nice looking and sounding?)
10:40Coffee & Juice break
11:00John Williamson: Multimodal Excitatory Interfaces with Automatic Content Classification
11:20Thilo Hinterberger: Orchestral Sonification of Brain Signals and its Application to Brain-Computer Interfaces and Arts
11:40Thomas Hermann: Tangible Computing for Interactive Sonification of Multivariate Data
12:00-13:45Lunch Break
(You can buy your own at Vanburgh College or visit the pubs in Heslington village)
13:45-15:30Short / Work-in-Progress Paper Sessions (15 mins = 10+5) (chair: Thomas Hermann)
13:45Tony Stockman: The Design of Interactive Audio Soccer
14:00Michael Pelz-Sherman: Suggested Applications of Musical Improvisation Analysis to Interactive Sonificiation
14:15Stefania Serafin: Influence of Interactive Auditory Feedback on the Haptic Perception of Virtual Objects
14:30Short Break
14:45Brian FG Katz: CoRSAIRe – Combination of Sensori-motor Rendering for the Immersive Analysis of Results
15:00David Dewhurst: An Audiotactile Vision-Substitution System
15:15Alberto de Campo: A Data Sonification Design Space Map
15:30Coffee break leading into
15:40Demo Sessions
16:40Panel
17:10Closing words
17:15End of Official Programme
18:30Dinner (informally; in various places in York)

Call for Papers (finished)

We invite two forms of presentation:

  • Full Papers: 20 min. presentation (15+5), papers in pdf format 4-8 pages
  • Work in Progress: 15 min presentation (10+5)

For either of the above categories we ask for an Abstract (approximately a half page) to allow a decision for acceptance (see
important dates below). Abstracts are to be submitted to papers@interactive-sonification.org . Please indicate in the Abstract if you intend to submit multimedia examples.

Authors of accepted papers are asked to prepare their manuscript according to the following document styles, provided here as
LaTeX-template (zip, 180k) or as Word template (doc, 52k)..

For any general enquiries please contact enquiry@interactive-sonification.org

Important Dates

29.09.2006Deadline for Abstracts
20.11.2006Notification of Acceptance
01.12.2006Registration Deadline: Early registration is advised as numbers are strictly limited.
20.12.2006Deadline for Final Papers

Registration

Registration will be

15 GBP (25 EUR)students
25 GBP (40 EUR)academics

Please register as soon as possible to facilitate our planning simply by sending your commitment to attend to register@interactive-sonification.org. Payment is due at the registration desk, please in cash (EUR or GBP).

Location

Both events will take place at the University of York,
U.K. Physics/Electronics Department. The ConGAS meeting (Friday 2nd
February) will take place on the 3rd floor in the IGDS room. The ISon
meeting (Saturday 3rd February) will take place on the ground floor in
room PL005. Maps of the University Campus can be found here. On this map, the Physics/Electronics building is marked as ’14’. Here you find directions to York.  There is also an extensive Travel Information page. However, most people travelling from overseas will find it easiest to fly to Manchester Airport, and to catch a direct train
from the airport to York.  From York train station you can either
walk to your York hotel or get a taxi or bus to the University
(actually some people walk there too as it is about 2-3 miles). You
might want to consider having some ‘tourist time’ in York, as it’s a
great place to look round.  Detailed tourist information can be
found here.

If in doubt – find your way to the University of York’s
Physics/Electronics’ building, report to the Porter’s Lodge/kiosk and
ask for (Friday) “the ConGAS meeting in the IGDS room” or (Saturday)
“The ISon meeting in PL005”

Accommodation

We are not able to organise any block-booked cheap accommodation on the
University Campus, but actually most people like to get a place in York
City anyway.  Roberto Bresin has stayed here a few times and
recommends the following:

Hotels that could be recommended are at walking distance from the university:

Food and drink in York

We are not organising a large ‘banquet’ and charging lots of money for
it. Instead we hope that you will naturally form groups of people who
want to go to a pub or restaurant in York. We are very grateful to
Sandra Pauletto for compiling these two lists of York Pubs and York Restaurants which she has personally tested for us (although not all in one week!!).

Sandra’s pub guide

Tiny quirky pub

The Bluebell Inn (google-map), 53 Fossgate, York, YO1 9TF, 01904 654 904


Small quirky pub

The Maltings (google-map), Tanners Moat, York, YO1 6HU, 01904 655 387


Traditional pub

Red Lion (google-map), 2 Merchant Gate, York, YO1 9TU, 01904 640 418


Traditional pub, good for lunch or dinner as well

  • Punch Bowl Inn (google-map), 7 Stonegate, York, YO1 8AN, 01904 615 491
  • The Old White Swan (google-map), 80 Goodramgate, York, YO1 7LF, 01904 540 911
  • Ye Olde Starre Inne (google-map), 40 Stonegate, York, YO1 8AS, 01904 623 063
  • The Royal Oak (google-map), 18 Goodramgate, York, YO1 7LG, 01904 653 856


Sandra’s restaurant guide

Very good, a bit expensive, continental cuisine

The Olive Tree (google-map)

10 Tower St, York, YO1 9SA

01904 624 433


South American style vegetarian

El Piano (google-map)

15-17 Grape Lane, York, YO1 7HU

01904 610 676


Spanish tapas

La Tasca (google-map)

21 Back Swinegate, York, YO1 8AD

01904 521 100


Expensive, quite famous

The Blue Bicycle York Ltd, (google-map)

34 Fossgate, York, YO1 9TA

01904 673 990


A bit expensive, continental cuisine

Masons Bistro Bar (google-map)

13 Fossgate, York, YO1 9TA

01904 611 919


Italian and good for pizza

La Piazza (York) Ltd (google-map)

45 Goodramgate, York, YO1 7LS

01904 642 641


Pizza mainly (a chain restaurant but quite good)

Pizza Express plc (google-map)

River House 17, Museum St, York, YO1 7DJ

01904 672 904


Pizza mainly (a chain restaurant but quite good)

Ask York (google-map)

The Grand Assembly Rooms, Blake St, York, YO1 8QG

01904 637 254


Chinese

Willow Cantonese Restaurant (google-map)

37 Coney St, York, YO1 9QL

01904 654 728


Good Thai food

Siam House Thai Restaurant (google-map)

63a Goodramgate, York, YO1 7LS

01904 624 677