Sound scenography

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Sound scenography (also known as acoustic scenography) [1] is the process of staging spaces and environments through sound. [2] It combines expertise from the fields of architecture, acoustics, communication, sound design and interaction design to convey artistic, historical, scientific, or commercial content or to establish atmospheres and moods. [3]

Contents

Definition

Initially developed as a sub-discipline of scenography, it is now primarily used in the context of exhibitions, museums, media installations and trade fairs, as well as shops, adventure parks, spas, reception areas, and open-plan offices. [4]

Distinct from other applications in sound design, spatial localisation plays a central role in sound scenography. Sound in contexts such as film soundtracks has a synchronised and standardised listening experience. The sound experience should be the same for every visitor at every position (and in every cinema). Because exhibition spaces are freely traversable and show audio-visual content at various stations across the room, sound scenography aims at providing every visitor with an individual listening experience with distinct start and end points as well as a distinct progression. Thus, the dramaturgy of the sound experience is no longer determined by the timeline of the soundtrack, but by the position and movement of the visitor. [5]

Methods of Sound Scenography

Spaces can be staged with sound in various ways. Rooms have different tonal properties and acoustics depending on their architecture and interior design. Live musicians can spread across the room or play in motion, which is especially common in spatial music. [6] The reproduction of sounds via loudspeakers, offers a wide range of possibilities for integrating sound into spaces and is therefore the most commonly used method. In that context, sound scenography is influenced from various practices in the wider field of sound design and composition, such as generative music, sonic interaction design, and sound masking. [7] Loudspeaker systems used to distribute sound range from standard spatial audio setups to the more customised distributions common in sound installation, such as the Acousmatic Room Orchestration System. [8] The spatial integration of sound delivered via headphones is a defining feature of interactive soundwalks. Leveraging technologies such as geolocation and head tracking, sounds are used to augment real environments in what the BBC's R&D department calls "Audio AR". [9] In the more controlled environment of an exhibition, this approach has been used to create fully virtual sound environments. [10]

Functions of Sound Scenography

Sound scenography performs many of the established functions of sound in film soundtracks. It gives emotional connotations to spaces, exhibits or even individual interactions through the use of sound. Soundscapes are used to establish atmospheres and moods with varying degrees of realism. Sound content is also used to evoke memories and associations. Soundscapes and musical accents clarify visual content or re-contextualise it. Content can also be conveyed purely sonically without accompanying visual media. [11] Especially in connection with large-scale video projection, sound is used to direct the viewer's attention. In all these application areas, sound scenography relates the different sonic components of an exhibition to one another in order to create a coherent overall soundscape. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acoustics</span> Branch of physics involving mechanical waves

Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binaural recording</span> Method of recording sound

Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3-D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments. This effect is often created using a technique known as dummy head recording, wherein a mannequin head is fitted with a microphone in each ear. Binaural recording is intended for replay using headphones and will not translate properly over stereo speakers. This idea of a three-dimensional or "internal" form of sound has also translated into useful advancement of technology in many things such as stethoscopes creating "in-head" acoustics and IMAX movies being able to create a three-dimensional acoustic experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surround sound</span> System with loudspeakers that surround the listener

Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener. Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems commonly had three screen channels of sound that played from three loudspeakers located in front of the audience. Surround sound adds one or more channels from loudspeakers to the side or behind the listener that are able to create the sensation of sound coming from any horizontal direction around the listener.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acoustical engineering</span> Branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration

Acoustical engineering is the branch of engineering dealing with sound and vibration. It includes the application of acoustics, the science of sound and vibration, in technology. Acoustical engineers are typically concerned with the design, analysis and control of sound.

A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth, and popularised by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology to computer science. An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the broader acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources, natural and artificial, within a given area as modified by the environment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized these definitions in 2014.

Scenography is a practice of crafting stage environments or atmospheres. In the contemporary English usage, scenography is the combination of technological and material stagecrafts to represent, enact, and produce a sense of place in performance. While inclusive of the techniques of scenic design and set design, scenography is a holistic approach to the study and practice of all aspects of design in performance.

3D audio effects are a group of sound effects that manipulate the sound produced by stereo speakers, surround-sound speakers, speaker-arrays, or headphones. This frequently involves the virtual placement of sound sources anywhere in three-dimensional space, including behind, above or below the listener.

Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art as a practice "harnesses, describes, analyzes, performs, and interrogates the condition of sound and the process by which it operates."

Acousmatic music is a form of electroacoustic music that is specifically composed for presentation using speakers, as opposed to a live performance. It stems from a compositional tradition that dates back to the origins of musique concrète in the late 1940s. Unlike acoustic or electroacoustic musical works that are realized from scores, compositions that are purely acousmatic often exist solely as fixed media audio recordings.

Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is a discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer a musician, composer and former professor of communication studies at Simon Fraser University with the help of his team there as part of the World Soundscape Project. The original WSP team included Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp, Bruce Davies and Peter Huse, among others. The first study produced by the WSP was titled The Vancouver Soundscape. The interest in this area grew enormously after this pioneer and innovative study and the area of acoustic ecology raised the interest of researchers and artists all over the world. In 1993, the members of the by now large and active international acoustic ecology community formed the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.


Sound studies is an interdisciplinary field that to date has focused largely on the emergence of the concept of "sound" in Western modernity, with an emphasis on the development of sound reproduction technologies. The field first emerged in venues like the journal Social Studies of Science by scholars working in science and technology studies and communication studies; it has however greatly expanded and now includes a broad array of scholars working in music, anthropology, sound art, deaf studies, architecture, and many other fields besides. Important studies have focused on the idea of a "soundscape", architectural acoustics, nature sounds, the history of aurality in Western philosophy and nineteenth-century Colombia, Islamic approaches to listening, the voice, studies of deafness, loudness, and related topics. A foundational text is Jonathan Sterne's 2003 book "The Audible Past", though the field has retroactively taken as foundational two texts, Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music (1985) and R. Murray Schafer's The Tuning of the World (1977).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wave field synthesis</span> Technique for creating virtual acoustic environments

Wave field synthesis (WFS) is a spatial audio rendering technique, characterized by creation of virtual acoustic environments. It produces artificial wavefronts synthesized by a large number of individually driven loudspeakers from elemantary waves. Such wavefronts seem to originate from a virtual starting point, the virtual sound source. Contrary to traditional phantom sound sources, the localization of WFS established virtual sound sources does not depend on the listener's position. Like as a genuine sound source the virtual source remains at fixed starting point.

Ambiophonics is a method in the public domain that employs digital signal processing (DSP) and two loudspeakers directly in front of the listener in order to improve reproduction of stereophonic and 5.1 surround sound for music, movies, and games in home theaters, gaming PCs, workstations, or studio monitoring applications. First implemented using mechanical means in 1986, today a number of hardware and VST plug-in makers offer Ambiophonic DSP. Ambiophonics eliminates crosstalk inherent in the conventional stereo triangle speaker placement, and thereby generates a speaker-binaural soundfield that emulates headphone-binaural sound, and creates for the listener improved perception of reality of recorded auditory scenes. A second speaker pair can be added in back in order to enable 360° surround sound reproduction. Additional surround speakers may be used for hall ambience, including height, if desired.

LARES is an electronic sound enhancement system that uses microprocessors to control multiple loudspeakers and microphones placed around a performance space for the purpose of providing active acoustic treatment. LARES was invented in Massachusetts in 1988, by Dr David Griesinger and Steve Barbar who were working at Lexicon, Inc. LARES was given its own company division in 1990, and LARES Associates was formed in 1995 as a separate corporation. Since then, hundreds of LARES systems have been used in concert halls, opera houses performance venues, and houses of worship from outdoor music festivals to permanent indoor symphony halls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sound</span> Vibration that travels via pressure waves in matter

In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain. Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of 17 meters (56 ft) to 1.7 centimeters (0.67 in). Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audio engineer</span> Engineer involved in the recording, reproduction, or reinforcement of sound

An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts."

Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how human auditory system perceives various sounds. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound. Psychoacoustics is an interdisciplinary field of many areas, including psychology, acoustics, electronic engineering, physics, biology, physiology, and computer science.

imm sound was a privately owned company based in Barcelona, Spain, specializing in 3D sound technology and post production for the cinema and other media industries. After the installation in September 2009 by the company Iosono at Chinese Theater at Los Angeles, Immsound became In November 2010 the second cinema sound company to install cinema theaters capable of reproducing channel free soundtracks. The company was finally acquired by Dolby in July 2012.

Auralization is a procedure designed to model and simulate the experience of acoustic phenomena rendered as a soundfield in a virtualized space. This is useful in configuring the soundscape of architectural structures, concert venues, and public spaces, as well as in making coherent sound environments within virtual immersion systems.

Sound maps are digital geographical maps that put emphasis on the sonic representation of a specific location. Sound maps are created by associating landmarks and soundscapes.

References

  1. Herzer, Jan Paul; Kullmann, Max (July 2012). "Acoustic scenography – sound design for built environments". Proceedings of the Global Composition. Sound, Media, and the Environment.
  2. Atelier Brückner (2010). Scenography / Szenografie – Making spaces talk / Narrative Räume. Stuttgart: avedition. p. 209.
  3. Poesch, Janina (March 2014). "Hammersnail Sonic Research". Plot. Vol. 10. p. 104. ISBN   978-3-89986-153-2.
  4. Poesch, Janina (March 2014). "Sound als Erzählebene in narrativen Räumen". Plot. 10: 21.
  5. Scherzer, Johannes (22 February 2017). "Democratizing Spatial Audio". Hedd Audio. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  6. Brant, Henry (1967). "Space as an essential aspect of musical composition". Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music: 221–242.
  7. Collins, Karen; Kapralos, Bill; Tessler, Holly (May 2014). The Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199797226.
  8. Kiedaisch, P. (2020). Szenografie. avedition.
  9. BBC Research and Development (13 March 2019). "Audio AR: Geolocated Sound". BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  10. Kirn, Peter (28 November 2018). "An exploration of silence, in a new exhibition in Switzerland". CDM - Create Digital Media. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
  11. Lissa, Zofia (1965). Ästhetik der Filmmusik. Berlin.
  12. Scherzer, Johannes. "Sound Scenography". Taucher Sound. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

Further reading