sonification goes viral?

yesterday, youtube user r2blend posted a video titled MS Paint Interpereted as audio data = Awesome music! it was also posted on soundcloud. already, the soundcloud post has 160k plays, and is now circulating the blogs. (here it is on boingboing.)

r2blend had just discovered the wonder of sonification. of course, sonification is nothing new. i've been experimenting with it for 15 years now! in fact, back in 2009, i wrote part 2 of my databending primer specifically about this topic. (ironically, at the time i submitted the link to boingboing and they never posted about it, but rather than excoriate them for being late to the party, let's just be glad they finally arrived.) if you're at all interested in this topic, i highly recommend you check it out; it's full of detailed information.

if you want to hear some glitch music created using this technique, check out my dissonance is bliss EP from 1999 (available for free download) or my true data 12" (currently only available on vinyl, but i may put it online somewhere now that sonification is hot... in fact maybe i need to start a soundcloud account available for streaming on soundcloud). ¶