Data gathered from two stars using the Kepler telescope has been transformed into a reggae riff for an American band. New Jersey reggae-rock group Echo Movement, whose body of work includes the songs “In the Beginning,” “Across the Universe” and “I Think God Smokes Weed,” approached the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab with the unusual request. “People have made music with space sounds before, but largely using pulsars and space events that can be recorded in the radio spectrum,” said band member David Fowler. “We wanted something completely off the chart.”... When it’s not mixing reggae tracks, the Sonification Lab — which joins Georgia Tech’s schools of psychology and interactive computing — develops ways of presenting visual data as sound. The practical applications of their research span aiding the visually impaired to relaying information in “complex task environments,” such as cockpits or within the space program. “Sound is the best pattern-recognition tool we have,” said Bruce Walker, the lab’s lead professor. “Instead of visually scanning through a long list of numbers, looking for patterns or random occurrences, sometimes it’s easier to create an audio file and listen for them. Very interesting patterns can often be discovered by using sound.”
