Manifold Compositions, Music Visualization, and Scientific Sonification In an Immersive Virtual-reality Environment

An interdisciplinary project encompassing sound synthesis, music composition, sonification, and visualization of music is facilitated by the high-performance computing capabilities and the virtual-reality environments available at Argonne National Laboratory. The paper describes the main features of the project's centerpiece, DIASS (Digital Instrument for Additive Sound Synthesis); "A.N.L.-folds", an equivalence class of compositions produced with DIASS; and aplication of DIASS in two experiments in the sonification of complex scientific data. Some of the larger issues connected with this project, such as the changing ways in which both scientists and composers perform their tasks, are briefly discussed.