Soundscrapers are forming.
Dreaming of glaciers, they are mere ice crystals dancing in a dark cave.
This room diffuses 13 channels of sound. Controls are via a handheld gamepad, routed through Max/MSP.
An LED cross marks the locus of sound diffusion, where the spatiality of the virtual acoustic room is rendered at its sharpest.
The room is a simulation chamber for imagined and real architectural spaces. Building upon the SPAT module developed by IRCAM in France, we are able to reproduce architectural spaces convincingly. We use both Ambisonics and VBAP as techniques to render sound sources.
Sound sources can be moved by the gamepad. It is not accidental that we use a gamepad, for gaming is the mode which has synthesized development in the room thus far. We are building small games to test how we perceive sound.
The speakers and insulation materials are concealed by acoustically transparent fibrous sheets. The lack of a visible sound source enables the visitor to be fully immersed in the sound. Sound is treated as a material itself, rather than just an effect projected by a loudspeaker. Ears can be easily deceived.
The cave is formless; those who enter make their own architecture.
(this is an ongoing project by 52-Blue, a collaboration between Nick Sowers and Bryan Finoki, and DEMILIT, a collaboration between Nick Sowers, Bryan Finoki, and Javier Arbona)
