Loud Numbers explores what happens to data when we stop looking at it and begin to listen. At the crossroads of sound, music and analysis, the studio approaches data sonification as an artistic language in its own right, a way of making invisible phenomena audible and revealing rhythms where there once were only numbers.
Founded by Miriam Quick and Duncan Geere, Loud Numbers treats sound as a space for the sensitive interpretation of data. Where data visualisation often encourages a direct, frontal reading, sonification opens up a more diffuse, immersive and intimate experience that unfolds over time.
Data is no longer static. It vibrates, repeats, intensifies or falls silent.
Scorched Earth — an audiovisual artwork based on daily fire counts from the Swedish county of Skåne during the extreme summer of 2018.
Since the launch of the Loud Numbers podcast in 2019, the studio has been developing sonic works in which scientific rigour sits alongside musical composition.
Each project is built on a precise translation of data into sound parameters such as pitch, tempo, texture and intensity, without reducing sound to a simple illustration.
The resulting compositions are conceived as genuine listening pieces, capable of conveying information while also creating an emotional experience.
— Marthe Viallet
Through installations, radio broadcasts and experimental audio formats, Loud Numbers questions our relationship to data in a world saturated with screens.
By inviting audiences to listen to what is usually shown, the studio encourages a shift in perception, allowing systems, flows and dynamics that shape our environment to be experienced differently.
Here is an example with the Carrington Event project:
An audiovisual artwork based on daily fire counts from the Swedish county of Skåne during the extreme summer of 2018, blending data sonification with audio-reactive visuals.
A collaboration telling the story of the largest solar storm in recorded history, transforming archival data from 1859 into audiovisual experiences designed to be played live and exhibited in gallery spaces.
A 10-hour sound art piece based on energy data collected overnight from volunteers in Malmö, Sweden — a meditative symphony of the unseen energy that hums in our homes every night.
No exhibitions are planned for this artist at the moment.
Data To Art is a curated online gallery celebrating outstanding data art projects. Reach out if you’d like to submit your work for consideration.
