2.01. – 14.01.2018
Workshop at the Hybrid Lab TU/UdK Berlin.
Objectives and content:
Electronic music and computer music has so far opened up space as a compositional dimension mainly through multi-channel loudspeaker systems configured as an acoustic outer shell around the audience. The workshop, on the other hand, sees itself as an introduction to an aesthetic practice that composes space by taking it as a prerequisite for sonic-sculptural material, thereby artistically incorporating performance environments of varying complexity.
In the course of the workshop, electro-acoustic space-sound phenomena, plastic sound objects, which occur in certain sound (re)production processes, will be theoretically motivated and experienced in practice with regard to their acoustic foundations and artistic po(e)tential. The icosahedral loudspeaker (IKO) is used as an acoustic tool and musical instrument – a compact, 20-channel loudspeaker system developed at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of Art and Design Graz.
In comparison with space-sound reproduction methods such as multi-channel stereophony, wave field synthesis and Higher Order Ambisonics, selected artistic works will be used to explore the extent to which a “Shared Perceptual Space” can be found where the perceptions of composers, scientists, engineers and the public overlap. The participants will thus have the opportunity to compare the most important current sound projection techniques conceptually and aesthetically by means of exemplary compositions and their own experiments.
The difficulty of a verbal description of the generated space-sound objects will also be addressed. The workshop provides an overview of existing terminologies and their use in sound art, musicology and acoustics.
After a joint introduction to its use, the participants will have the opportunity to realise their own sound experiments with the IKO. For this purpose, the virtualised IKO (vIKO) will also be introduced, which enables an auralisation of spatial performance situations by means of headphone-based binaural synthesis.
Contents and speakers
– Concepts and technologies of spatial sound reproduction
(Prof. Dr. Stefan Weinzierl, FG Audiokommunikation, TU Berlin)
– Introduction to the operation and control of compact loudspeaker arrays
(Dr. Frank Schultz, sonible GmbH, Graz)
– Space composition and sculptural sound objects
(Dr. Gerriet K. Sharma, IEM/OSIL, University of Arts Graz)
