The piece gleAM was developed over a period of two years in cooperation between physicists of the department of Accelerator Physics at the Helmholtz-Centre Berlin. Research-Centre on complex material-systems and energy and Gerriet Krishna Sharma.
The starting point for the two-year collaboration was a worldwide unique project in accelerator research. The Berlin electron storage ring BESSY II will be expanded into a variable pulse length storage ring (VSR). The upgrade will make long or short light pulses available at every measuring station. Physical phenomena such as interferences or beam control play an important role, some of which have analogies in acoustics. These analogies form basic motifs that can be experienced as acoustic sculptures in space with the help of synthetic sounds, recorded noises, physical effects and audible data sets.
gleAM was premiered at KONTAKTE festival at Academy of Arts Berlin 2017 and performed at Helmholtz Centre Berlin in the same year.
Franz Zotter and Gerriet K. Sharma have been working on turning the IKO, built in 2006, into an instrument and composition tool from 2009-2018 targeting a new manifestation of spatial sound in contemporary computer music. As a result of this fruitful composer acoustician dialogue, the compositions grrawe (10’26’’) and firniss (11’23’’) could be developed. These two pieces were stepping stones to thinking about the technical device and its acoustical principles as a means of artistic expression and orchestration of sounds in space.
From 2014-2018 OSIL became a research project funded by the Austrian Research Fund within the framework of the Programme for Arts-based Research (FWF/PEEK) at the Institute of Electronic Music an Acoustics Graz (IEM).
THE IEM ICOSAHEDRAL LOUDSPEAKER (IKO) is now a new musical instrument with unique and characteristic features in the field of spatialisation and sound sculpting.
The IEM and the OSIL - research group has been constantly working on the IKO, in order to continuously improve its quality for audio playback and playing electroacoustical concerts.
- InSonic at ZKM Karlsruhe
- gleAM at HZB Berlin
- IKO Concert at Hybrid Lab Berlin
- gleAM: Premiere at KONTAKTE-festival at AdK Berlin
- 1st International IKO Competition at ICSA Graz
- Recital and recordings at the concert series of die Reihe at Neumannsaal of TU/UdK Berlin
- Opening of the klingt gut!-symposium at HAW Hamburg
- Recital at klingt gut!-symposium at HAW Hamburg
- next-genaeration festival at ZKM Karlsruhe
- Towards the Expanded Field at HDA Graz
- Edgard Varèse guest-professorship: Final Concert at SIM Berlin
- Recital at klingt gut!-symposium at HAW Hamburg
- OSIL-concert at MUMUTH Graz
- Installation at Künstlerhaus Graz during the exhibition Artificial Paradise? Immersion in Space and Time
- Semaphor: Premiere at Acker Stadt Palast Berlin
THE IKO - SUMMER SCHOOL was held from 10/09-14/09/2018 and finalized the compact spherical loudspeaker array and artistic research on from the past four years:
ORCHESTRATING SPACE BY ICOSAHDERAL LOUDSPEAKER (OSIL)
The 2-day IKO- symposium offered the opportunity to learn about our artistic, psycho-acoustic, and audio-technical experiences and findings.
The 3-day IKO - summer school that preceded the symposium allowed registered visitors to work and experiment with the 3 IEM Icosahedral Loudspeakers (IKO). Its working spaces are Ligeti Hall, Studio Stage Room, Orchestra Rehearsal Room, and the dressrooms at MUMUTH. There were the IKO1, IKO2, IKO3, and our new loudspeaker cubes to work and play with.
- IKO Cologne-concert
- Concert at New York Electroacoustic Music Festival
- SMC Hamburg
- Rigorosum at Artistic-Scientific Doctoral school Graz
- All day IKO-demonstration at HZB Berlin
I. Composition
Within the framework of a sequence of consecutive electroacoustic compositions, the sculptural-choreographic properties of sound phenomena will be examined in an empirical study. Thus the starting and aiming point of OSIL is always a spatial sound composition in HOA.
- ICSA Graz
- Ambisonic Summer School Graz
- Klingt gut! - symposium Hamburg
- InSonic Karlsruhe
- SPATIAL PRACTICES I-X. at Technical Universtiy Berlin
- Designforum Graz
- FAMA-FAVA Workshop Berlin
- Sounding out the Space Conference in Dublin
- InSonic at ZKM Karlsruhe
- EPARM Festival Graz
- Izlog Festival Zagreb Sound Art and Experimental Music concert 01
- Izlog Festival Zagreb Sound Art and Experimental Music concert 02
- Concert and recital at the symposium for Artistic Needs and Institutional Desires at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
II. Inter-subjective Verbal description
Parallel to the compositional process, an explorative inter-subjective verbal description will detail the phenomena produced in such a way that it is generalizable and can be dealt with as a quantitative psychoacoustic question.
the - 1 7 0 - loudspeaker array
Compact spherical loudspeaker arrays exhibit controllable directivity, and electroacoustic music recently became interested in using their beamforming capacities to compose spatial music. In particular, directivities of 3rd-order or higher turned out to cover a suficiently precise horizontal control.
An IEM OSIL-follow up proposes the 170 compact spherical loudspeaker design that is DIY-3D-printable and only uses 8 audio channels.
The 170 array houses seven 2.5” broadband transducers that allow third-order horizontal beamforming and a 6” subwoofer.
The CAD model, electroacoustic measurements, and control filters were made openly accessible and show it’s beampatterns for verification, based on those measurements.
III. Psychoacoustic Modeling of Auditory Objects
To find these explorative verbal descriptions and their psychoacoustic quantization for artistically generated auditory objects, methods known from psychoacoustic and an expert listening panel shall be employed. The combination with spherical microphone array measurements, psychoacoustic models of the auditory objects can be established
- Hybrid Lab: Composition of Space with Sculptural Sound Objects at Technical University Berlin
- Lange Nacht der Forschung Graz: How sound beams become sound sculptures, AES 144 IKO-tutorial
- HDA: House of Architecture Graz
- OSIL-IKO masterclass at klingt gut!-symposium, HAW Hamburg
- Tonmeistertagung (TMT) Cologne
- Annual German Acoustic Society Meeting DEGA
- Sweep: International symposium on sound research in Kassel
- Izlog Festival for Sound Art and Experimental Music
- ISAC 2015
- ASA meeting Florida
- InSonic ZKM Karlsruhe
- EPARM Festival Graz
- Artistic-Sientific Doctoral School Graz (KWD)
- Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
- DAFx Trondheim
the - 3 9 3 - loudspeaker array
MA Stefan Riedel took part in the OSIL-IKO summer school and then, in the following months, designed the 393 loudspeaker array, a sort of 'down grade' version of the IKO that can be built at home for 10% of the IKO price.
In the cause of his Master together with supervisor Franz Zotter, he developed a 3D printable housing for a compact spherical loudspeaker array. To be precise, a mixed-order array of 15 loudspeakers arranged in three rings, 3|9|3, achieving 4th order beamforming on the horizon.