Sonosphere
Christine Chung
The data we generate through everyday apps holds a form of truth. It reflects what we return to, what we value, and how we move through our lives. It’s quietly stored without us realizing, and it can feel even more accurate than our own memory. Yet beyond the raw numbers, this data contains something more subtle: patterns. By exploring these patterns across time in Sonosphere ("sono,” meaning sound, and "sphere," meaning world), we can learn about repetition, variation, and our own habits over time. We can experience a world shaped entirely by our own listening patterns.
Sonosphere is a personalized digital experience that transforms a user’s Spotify data into an interactive, explorable space. User data generates a unique world that can be zoomed, rotated, and navigated in real time using hand movement. Four parts of listening behavior are analyzed to visualize a distinct aspect of the user’s musical identity. A personalized persona is formed from these patterns, revealing how each user uniquely engages with music.
Rather than treating music as content to consume, it is reframed as a behavioral medium. By analyzing repetition, exploration, time of day, and curation habits, the project uncovers identities embedded within our data so that we may learn how we listen, not just what we listen to.
Through an interactive website and installation, users engage with their data spatially, using their bodies to navigate and shape the experience. In doing so, Sonosphere challenges traditional uses of data as personal identity, not as something to extract monetary value from.