Short Description
The central component of this lab is a mobile and modular sound projection system for spatial acoustic design. In the context of musical composition, performance and installation art, it enables work with different projection strategies, such as beamforming, wave field synthesis and ambisonics.
Contact Person
Thomas Grill
Research Services
Modular and mobile sound projection system for room-acoustic and spatial sound design in artistic research, with a focus on experimental work in composition, performance and installation art. The lab is a transportable research unit combining a compact icosahedral beamforming loudspeaker and a scalable wave field synthesis array with networked multichannel amplification, and can be set up in concert halls, studios, exhibition spaces and non-standard architectural situations.
For artistic research projects, the system can be used in various configurations, but requires specific expertise on the part of users. Subject to a match of research interests and the availability of personnel resources, research collaborations can also include introduction to the technology, technical and artistic consultation as well as workshops and teaching formats.
Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure
The ÆSR – SOUND PROJECTION LABORATORY provides infrastructure for experimental sound projection, i.e. for the deliberate shaping of sound in space rather than its mere distribution across channels. Its two core components represent complementary physical paradigms. The icosahedral loudspeaker (Sonible IKO 6) is a compact spherical array whose individually driven transducers emit directed beams from a single point in the room and use architectural reflections to constitute auditory objects at a distance from the loudspeaker itself.
The modular wave field synthesis system consists of eight mobile modules with 32 drivers each (256 individually driven channels), powered by networked multichannel amplifiers. The modules can be recombined into arrays of varying length, curvature and orientation, allowing the geometry of the system to be adapted to the given space, from small chamber-like configurations to extended fronts, and enabling focused sources, plane waves and physically synthesized wave fronts.
Methodologically, the laboratory links spatial audio synthesis (wave field synthesis, Ambisonics, directivity control and beamforming) with compositional, performative and installation-based practice. This includes, amongst other things: comparative work across projection paradigms within a single artistic setting; the development of real-time software and control strategies (SuperCollider, Pure Data/Max, Ambisonic and WFS toolkits, OSC-based interfaces); room-acoustic measurement, impulse response acquisition and system calibration; perceptual evaluation and listening studies on localization, distance and the plasticity of auditory objects; site-specific adaptation of array geometries to architecture. The modular design makes the system a research instrument in its own right: configurations can be varied systematically, tested immediately and evaluated with audiences on site.
Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW): Phonogrammarchiv (PhA)