Dozens of blue semicircles of varying sizes meander across a horizontal axis, some repeating in a uniformly-sized arc again and again, while others hop along at random intervals and at random sizes. This, Martin Wattenberg asserts, is the shape of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” The arcs connect repeating sections of the musical score to convey the overall structure, or shape, of the song. Wattenberg displays the shapes of several songs, from the folk song “Clementine” to John Coltrane.
Wattenberg’s investigation into the shape of song is part of his overall mission to make the invisible visible. He explained the thought processes and engineering behind some of his most interesting projects in his lecture “Revelatory Interfaces,” presented in the comfortably crowded McConomy Auditorium last Tuesday. His Shape of Sound project uses a computer to detect repetition in musical scores and draw the corresponding arcs. “One of my favorite types of music to look at is jazz,” Wattenberg said. “It begins with a series of repetitions and then it takes off and often baffles the computer.”
Wattenberg translates complex social data into images. His images have been exhibited at the London Institute of Contemporary Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, among others. The images are beautiful and artistic, but they are also designed to relay information about our culture. Wattenberg’s visualizations provide everyday people with new toys to play with, new tools for investigation, and new ways of understanding.
