The Intersection of Market Data and Melody
In a groundbreaking interdisciplinary initiative, a select group of Parvis School of Economics and Music undergraduates has successfully completed the 2024-2025 Summer Research Programme with the debut of “Market Noise”. This experimental project, supervised jointly by the Department of Computer Science and the School of Sonic Arts, sought to answer a provocative question: If the Wellington economy could sing, what would it sound like?
The project, which ran over the six-week summer break, tasked students with collecting anonymised point-of-sale transaction data from participating retailers in the Te Aro district. Using advanced data sonification techniques, the cohort translated raw economic metrics—spending velocity, transaction volume, and inflation adjustments—into musical parameters such as pitch, tempo, and timbre.
Methodology: From Spreadsheets to Synthesisers
The technical architecture of “Market Noise” was robust. Students from the Bachelor of Science (Computational Innovation) stream utilised Python libraries, specifically Pandas for data cleaning and irregular time-series analysis, to map the volatility of Cuba Street’s retail sector.
“The challenge was not in the coding, but in the aesthetic decisions,” remarked Dr. Sarah O’Connell, who oversaw the technical implementation. “We had to decide how to represent a sudden spike in consumer spending. Does it sound like a crescendo of violins, or a chaotic burst of digital static? We opted for a hybrid approach.”
The data was fed in real-time into Max/MSP, a visual programming language for music and multimedia. The resulting audio output generated a generative soundscape where the bassline represented the stable, fixed costs of local businesses (rent, utilities), while the high-frequency melodies represented the erratic nature of discretionary consumer spending.
A Sonic Reflection of Inflation
One of the most striking findings of the project was the auditory representation of inflation. The students programmed the synthesiser’s “dissonance” variable to track with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) fluctuations. As prices rose, the harmony became increasingly tense and unresolved.
Dr. Percival Thorne, Head of Economics, admitted he was initially sceptical of the artistic endeavour but was moved by the result. “As economists, we are accustomed to seeing inflation as a curve on a graph. To hear it—to physically experience that rising tension and the lack of harmonic resolution—provides a visceral understanding of market stress that a spreadsheet simply cannot convey.”
The “Black Friday” Glitch
In the spirit of academic transparency, the team acknowledged that the project was not without its hurdles. During the simulation of the “Black Friday” sales period, the algorithm encountered an overflow error. The sheer volume of transaction data triggered a feedback loop, resulting in thirty seconds of harsh, industrial noise that forced the students to manually override the system during the initial presentation.
Rather than viewing this as a failure, the faculty praised it as an accidental masterpiece. “It was unintentional, but it was accurate,” noted a Year 3 Music scholar involved in the project. “Unchecked consumerism is noise. It is stressful. The glitch captured the panic of the marketplace better than our intentional code did.”
Public Installation
The “Market Noise” installation will be open to the public for a limited time in the Parvis Foyer at 7 Inverlochy Place. Visitors can interact with the dataset, adjusting variables to hear how a recession might sound compared to an economic boom.
This project reaffirms the Parvis School of Economics and Music’s commitment to dissolving the boundaries between the sciences and the arts. By turning cold hard cash into complex chords, our students have proven that there is indeed a rhythm to the madness of the market.
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