Project :: Exploring the Tangibility and Experience of Spatial Listening

Exploring the Tangibility and Experience of Spatial Listening

Although technologically simple, sound installation artworks can yield richly engaging experiences by encouraging listeners to recognise that the appearance of sound is tied to their own movement and presence in the space. This project explores the experience of moving through and listening to a sound installation artwork, a mode of engagement that we characterise as ‘spatial listening’. It seeks to discover what we do when we listen and how that experience unfolds in our perception – how attention is directed, how sensations and bodily feelings appear. To explore the experience of spatial listening, we designed Being With The Waves, a multi-channel sound installation that allows listeners access to the imperceptible world of ultrasound. It consists of an array of tweeters emitting a composition that sounds physically in the space, but only by wearing a modified set of headphones are visitors able to hear it. This is achieved by employing amplitude modulation to shift audible sounds into the ultrasonic range, and later to shift them back to the audible range. Unusually, this modulation process leads to the Doppler effect becoming exaggerated and as listeners move in relation to the speakers, they hear the music bend and shift precisely with their movement. Listening is situated, subjective and perceptual, and a key contribution of this research lies in discovering the most effective research methods for eliciting the structure of audience experience. The project employs retrospective reporting methods including the micro-phenomenological interview technique to elicit the experience of spatial listening in fine-grained detail.

People

Nicole Robson
Nick Bryan-Kinns

Research Areas

Engagement
Interaction Design
Listening
Micro-phenomenology
Perception
Retrospective
Sound art

Spatial Listening Image — Exploring the tangibility and experience of spatial listening