Art · Research · Performance

Sonification

I use sound to listen into systems: brain activity, networked information, and the shifting probabilities of quantum states. Sonification becomes both compositional material and a way of perceiving structures that ordinarily remain abstract or invisible.

EEG Networks Quantum states Tuning systems
A dark interface mapping four-qubit basis states into a colored network of harmonic ratios.
Quantum sonification study: basis states, tuning relationships and harmonic networks.

01 / Earlier works

Sound as a portrait of living data

These projects translate electrical signals from the body, the shifting language of the web and transcribed insect rhythms into audiovisual and musical form.

Web crawler · Max/MSP · 2008

Network Sonification

A Turbulence.org commission that crawls related URLs and translates patterns of words, images and links into real-time sonic portraits.

zachlayton · Webcrawl rhizome

Zach Layton seated in meditation beside a laptop while wearing an EEG sensor at the Rubin Museum.

02 / Current research

Quantum states as musical material

My recent research explores quantum sonification: methods for mapping amplitudes, probabilities, phase relationships and measurement into sound. The work asks how a quantum state might be heard not as a fixed object, but as an evolving field of musical possibility. Current prototypes use four-qubit circuits to shape 256-point wavetables and generate circuit-weighted impulse responses.

Four Bloch sphere diagrams with phase values, spherical harmonic components and four-qubit basis probabilities.
Four-qubit state view: Bloch vectors, harmonic components and basis probabilities.
A quantum music interface connecting basis states to harmonic and subharmonic tuning ratios.
Harmonic-network view: computational basis states translated into tunings and interval relationships.
Quantum wavetable synthesis slide showing a four-qubit Bell-state circuit, a 256-point waveform and its oscillator spectrum.
Quantum wavetable synthesis: a four-qubit density matrix programs a 256-point wavetable; here, a Bell state produces two harmonics.
Four-qubit circuit programmer beside basis-state probabilities and a generated 1.6-second impulse response.
Circuit-derived response: a programmed four-qubit state generates an audible, circuit-weighted 1.6-second impulse response.

Sound to inform, inspire & include

ICAD 2026

Follow current work in sonification and auditory display at the 31st International Conference on Auditory Display, taking place across Bielefeld, Barcelona and Troy from July 28–31, 2026.

Visit the conference