Sonification Strategies for the Film Rhythms of the Universe

Abstract

Design strategies are discussed for sonifications that were created for the short film Rhythms of the Universe, which was conceived by a cosmologist and a musician, with multi-media contributions from a number of artists and scientists. Sonification functions as an engagement factor in this scientific outreach project, along with narration, music, and visualization. This paper describes how the sonifications were created from datasets describing pulsars, the planetary orbits, gravitational waves, nodal patterns in the sun’s surface, solar winds, extragalactic background light, and cosmic microwave background radiation.