Dataphonics

dataphonics by Ryoji Ikeda, a minimalist electronic composer and visual artist, is a project that focuses on the relationship between the data of sound and the sound of data. The work deploys frequencies at the very edges of human hearing, sounds that, as Ikeda explains, « the listener becomes aware of only upon their disappearance. » A homage to Musique Concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer's Solfege de l'objet sonore, dataphonics began as a monthly broadcast on France culture's Atelier de Création Radiophonique. It is a highly physical auditory response to the ever-present binary numerical System of today's digital age, ultimately seeking to materialise the invisible domain of 'totally-pure-digital-data'. This book and audio CD include the mathematical and graphical examinations of the fundamental binary reduction/representation of sound waveforms, and 10 audio tracks composed from non-audio data as their elemental materials.

The new ZagZig series taking the form of book/CD sets, intends to create an original editorial space for sound works by artists. Originally broadcast by the Atelier de Création Radiophonique de France Culture, a laboratory for sound experimentation founded in 1969 by Alain Trutat, these artists confronted their usual practice with a radio project, which they extend here into a book, through drawings, photos, texts and correspondence, in order to create complete media objects.

The sound piece dataphonics (60') a free CD included in this book, was commissioned by the Atelier de Création Radiophonique (ACR) de France Culture. It was broadcasted monthly throughout the year 2006-07 and finally remixed as a special version, www.franceculture.com