OCHESTRATING SPACE BY ICOSAHEDRAL LOUDSPEAKER: OSIL
aimed to increase the practical and theoretical understanding of electroacoustic sound phenomena defined by their sculptural-choreographic nature, i.e., exhibiting localization, motion, and extent. Such auditory objects are new means of expression and as such they have already been subject of artistic research in the project The Choreography of Sounds (CoS), PEEK AR 41.
In particular, the project focused on the icosahedral loudspeaker (IKO) constructed at IEM in order to project auditory objects into spaces. This feature has already been successfully employed in various pieces performed in concerts and installations in different halls and listening situations.
The IKO is a compact playback device that uses acoustic algorithms to project sound beams into freely adjustable directions, also wall reflection leading to the listener.
In the existing compositions, listeners perceive auditory objects that move away from the IKO and can have various shapes. The auditory objects hereby created are stunning, maybe because they involve a natural contribution of the space.
Moreover, the visual simplicity of the IKO is contributing to an intimate and focused listening atmosphere. Nevertheless, how the effects work depends on how the sound beams are configured and mixed, as well as the space situation. For this reason, spatial compositions require to be adapted to the acoustic reflection paths in the given situation, unless the setup is strictly prescribed.
Having said that the ways of projecting auditory objects into space are not well understood yet. So far, artistic creation and shaping of these objects with different sounds was based on intuition and went without verbal description or understanding. This yields our current situation, in which we can neither precisely describe the required ingredients or outcomes yet, nor their psychoacoustic background. The development of a deeper understanding is regarded as a key to further develop the art, and a set of methods to adapt the IKO’s means of expression to different spaces. Eventually, also the reception of the produced phenomena and its aesthetics needs to be better understood and use a verbalization of inter-subjective agreement.
THE INTERMESHING DESCRIPTIONS
progressively informed the compositional process, resulting in a new, broader understanding and a generalizable approach of the artistic work with electroacoustic sound sculptures that is not restricted to works using the IKO.
The methods of working, understanding, and composing auditory objects that are projected into space with the IKO are internationally unique.
Within OSIL the IKO has been turned into a mobile tool for an advanced electroacoustic style of composition and a projection of electroacoustic music into the performance situation, which can easily be adapted optimally.
Establishing methods of serial and not hand-knitted production, as well as standardized use in future concert performances have been made viable. Moreover, the interdisciplinary experiments and results appeared in a series of publications.
The nomenclature system for electroacoustic sculptural-choreographic auditory objects of OSIL interconnected the disciplinary linguistic cultures of composition and psychoacoustics/audio engineering and has been made available on a website.
The research results of OSIL have been demonstrated in a moderated concert and in a concluding international IKO Summer Workshop.