The 20 th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD-2014) June 22-25, 2014, New York, USA A PRIORI ATTUNEMENT FOR TWO CASES OF DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS Insook Choi Columbia College Chicago Creative Technology Strategy and Innovation Studios 600 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605, USA insook@insookchoi.com ABSTRACT An application of a tuning function adopts a space metaphor in scientific methods for representing state space of non-linear dynamical systems. To achieve an interactive exploration of the systems through sounds, attunement is defined as an a priori process for conditioning a playable space for an auditory display. To demonstrate this process, two cases of dynamical systems are presented. The first case employs Chua’s circuit, in which system parameters are defined as energy introduction to the system and energy governance within the system. The second case employs a swarm simulation, defined as a set of rules to dictate social agents’ behaviors. Both cases exhibit complex dynamics and emergent properties. The paper synthesizes a comparative review of auditory display for the two cases while defining playable space with generalizable tuning functions. The scope of the discussion focuses on the relationship between playable space as a canonical architecture for auditory display workflow and its realization through attunement in applications of dynamical systems. 1. INTRODUCTION When engaging a system or a data set, auditory display falls into two general categories: auditory display with sound source and auditory display with silent source. The former is an employment of a sound source into meaningful treatments in which perceived sound informs listeners about the state of a system. The techniques involve tuning and scaling the system’s properties; the system’s faculty to generate sound must be tuned so that the dynamical domain can be brought into perceivable ranges. The latter is an employment of a silent data set or system in a meaningful interface to an external system that is capable of producing sounds, by which resulting sound informs listeners about the structure of the data or the state of the system. These techniques involve interfacing two systems; the properties of silent data or system must be mapped to the properties of the system capable of producing sounds. This paper reflects two cases, one from each category, selected for their common ground, nonlinearity of dynamical systems. The first case is presented through a chaotic circuit; the second case is presented through a swarm simulation. Both systems exhibit self-organizing principles and emergent behaviors that are commonly observed as complex dynamics. A dynamical system is iterative, comprised of a phase space that represents all possible states of the system and controls that afford ways of introducing changes to the system. A dynamical system is responsive to perturbations imparted to its controls or its phase space, and its output may exhibit emergent behavior. The presented cases engage interactive explorations of the systems with auditory feedback. The differences of the two cases yield insights to architecting two different interactive systems by applying a common framework, which is a large part of the discussions in this paper. Both cases harness responsiveness and emergent properties of a dynamical system for making sounds, while the sounds’ responsiveness and emergent features inform listeners about the system. System modeling methods often adopt the concept of space as a working metaphor. For example, state space is a description of a system’s input/output behaviors and a state space model is a description of how the state of a system evolves over time [1]. The plan for this paper is to present a framework for playable space (see section 2) and how it is surveyed and tuned, and present its application in two types of dynamical systems, one that natively produces sound and one that does not. The intent is to demonstrate that a well-tuned conception of a playable space is required for both types of systems, in order to enable auditory displays with respect to corresponding controls and phase space of each system. Subsequently, the examples will show that playable space is not an interface, but rather an enabling condition for the development of interfaces. The paper proposes that the concept of playable space may be formalized as a set of canonical relationships that enable the development of auditory interfaces for observing dynamical systems. This formalization, the a proiri attunement, is to acknowledge design criteria for auditory display in diverse dynamical systems, the criteria upholding the service to human cognition. 2. DEFINING PLAYABLE SPACE AND ITS ATTUNEMENT How a system evolves in time depends on a model description of a dynamical system. The temporal evolution, which is a common characteristic of dynamical systems, is what makes them compatible to engage in making sounds. However, one should be reminded that time dependent data series from a dynamical system do not necessarily make sounds though they often suggest sounds to the imagination. To bring about This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc/3.0/.