On October 24th, I went with some of my fellow College of San Mateo electronic music pals on a field trip to the Audium in San Francisco to experience program in their listening room that features 176 speakers. We got to hear their current offering, The Depths.
What is Audium? I think that their website best explains:
Audium is a place for the intersection of sound, space and deep immersive experience. Building on its history as a theater of sound, Audium is growing into a center for spatial sound art, featuring new programming and collaborations with artists from diverse communities. In the face of a world where attention is being tugged apart, Audium’s mission is to amplify perceptual awareness in worlds of sound and space. Our goal is to enrich, educate and bring our community together through immersive art forms and the use of space as an artistic tool. Audium is a canvas on which artists can stretch the boundaries of technology and creativity. Listeners then sit in the auditorium, in total darkness, and are enveloped by 176 speakers in sloping walls, a floating floor, and a suspended ceiling.
Sounds are “sculpted” through their movement, direction, speed and intensity on multiple planes in space. Live performance of composed works gives a human, interactive element to Audium’s spatial electronic orchestra.
