information aesthetics

a data sonification (representation of data through sound) application that uses musical rules as a way to convey important time-varying information. iSIC (short for information music) is a monitoring system, sort of a baby sitter for big complex systems (e.g. a large network, a server farm or a nuclear facility).
the sonification lets operators mind the activities of systems through precisely mapped sounds which play pleasantly in the background. to achieve this the sounds are expressed as a musical paradigm. most people will assume that iSIC sounds like background music, however, a trained operator will know differently. the operators will be immediately alerted to changes in the system by changes in the music, even if they are not paying attention.
see also heart songs & city heat heart & cloud harp.
[soundtomind.com & soundtomind.com(mov)]