From Visual Art to Music: Sonification Can Adapt to Painting Styles and Augment User Experience

Advances in the fields of data processing and sonification have been applied to transcribe a variety of visual experiences into an auditory format. Although image sonification examples exist, the application of these principles to visual art has not been examined thoroughly. We sought to develop and evaluate a set of guidelines for the sonification of visual artworks. Through conducting expert interviews (N = 11), we created an initial sonification algorithm that accounts for art style, lightness, and color diversity to modulate the sonified output in terms of tempo and pitch. This algorithm was evaluated through user evaluations (N = 22). User study responses supported expert interview findings, the notion that sonification can be designed to match the experience of viewing an artwork, and showed interesting interaction effects among art styles, visual components, and musical parameters. We suggest the proposed guidelines can augment visitor experiences at art exhibits and provide the basis for further experimentation.