Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

At the end of the 16th century Giovanni Gabrielli positioned musicians at different locations of the San Marco church to create striking spatial effects. With the advent of sound recording and reproduction technology, the idea of positioning sound in space has been revitalized by composers, sound designers and sound artists. In 1940, Walt Disney’s Fantasia was the first film to be released in a multichannel format, requiring 54 speakers to be placed throughout the auditorium. The 1958 Philips Pavilion heralded a fusion of sound, architecture, light and image into imersive environments and multimedia spectacle. Surround sound is now standard for film reproduction, and increasingly common in the consumer and home cinema market.

The SOUND AND SPACE workshop, tailored to sound and media artists, sound designers, musicians and composers, will investigate the expressive potential offered by spatialisation (virtual positioning of sound in space) and will allow participants to gain practical and artistic experience with state of the art solutions for work on spatial sound in artistic contexts. The workshop will start with a practical introduction to work on spatialisation, with a particular emphasis on the use of ViMiC (Virtual Microphone Control), as well as tools for spatialisation developed within the framework of Jamoma. After an initial introduction to use of the software, the rest of the workshop will be spent on investigations into artistic possibilities offered by the software for sound art, media installations, music and sonic scenography. The project ends with a public “work in progress” exhibition presentation of the works done by participants.

The workshop is open to BA and MA students at KHIB as well as professional artists. SOUND AND SPACE is done in collaboration between KHIB and BEK, supported by CIRMMT and the Schulich School of Music, McGill University.

NILS PETERS is a PhD Researcher in Music Technology at McGill University and affiliated with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) in Montreal, Canada. His work focuses on the perception and modeling of spatialized sounds. He studied electrical and audio engineering at the University for Music and Dramatic Arts and the University of Technology (Graz, Austria). He has worked as an audio engineer in the fields of recording, post-production and live electronics in Germany, Austria, France and Canada. He is also a co-developer of Jamoma, an open-source project that facilitates art-based research and performance practice within Cycling’74’s Max5.

TROND LOSSIUS is a sound and installation artist living in Bergen, Norway. He has collaborated with other artists on a large number of cross-disciplinary projects, in particular sound installations and works for stage. From 2003-2007 he was a research fellow in the arts at Bergen National Academy of the Arts. He is currently art director of BEK – Bergen Center for Electronic Arts and replacement associate professor at Bergen National Academy of the Arts.

Guest lecture:

MARÌA ANDUEZA OLMEDO is writhing a PhD thesis about Sound Art called “Urban Site-Specific Sound Installations”. Thanks to a grant of the NILS mobility project for researchers and artists, she is currently on a research residency at BEK and the National Academy of the Arts.

Participation

The workshop is free of charge. Students at KHIB sign up using the KHIB web site. External participants are requested to send an e-mail to trond.lossius@NOSPAMbek.no with contact information and a short motivation and bio.

Particpants are expected to have basic knowledge of work on sound and sound editing, but prior knowledge of Max, Jamoma or spatialisation is not required. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop (Mac or PC) and headphones.