Science or art? “Sonification in the age of biocybernetics reproduction”: A case study of the accessible aquarium project

With digital art being pervasive, art, technology, and science seem to be no longer separable and have been re-integrated. In fact, art history shows that when combined with them, art could give birth to a ground-breaking masterpiece. Based on that, we pose a simple question, “Can we analyze sonification works from the viewpoint of digital art aesthetics?” As a case study, we try to place the Accessible Aquarium Project (AAP) at the intersection of scientific research and art. Relying on term, “biocybernetics”, we discuss aesthetic meanings of the AAP in terms of new temporality (dynamicity), transformed relationships (combined gazes), dialectic improvement of the original (interactivity), and enacted collective art-work (embodied cognition). We hope this review will help illuminate the artistic contribution of interactive sonification and explore future directions. Further, this work is expected to contribute to facilitating discussions of aesthetics about the sonification works in the auditory display community