“Auralisms the Relativity of Acoustic Presence” is an ongoing research project and interactive sound installation. It fundamentally consists of a transdisciplinary theory of presence that utilizes sound as a medium for speculative action. It incorporates elements from the theory of General Relativity as well as Eastern philosophical ideas regarding presence and embodiment. The project falls in between the fields of sound art, conceptual science, and spirituality.
The project was created between 2019 and 2020 in Amsterdam and was awarded a grant by the Dutch government in 2021. The sound installation was developed during a residency at the Spatial Sound Institute (SSI) in Budapest in 2021, utilising the 4Dsound technology for spatial sound.
The installation consists of a topologically fluid aural space, where the spatial sound design is altered by users in real time. Built in through a custom algorithm that operates through the 4Dsound software and an interactive system, the aural space is a plastic medium that is meant to vehiculize presence and consciousness. Through a model inspired by general relativity and Vedic philosophy, users discover their own presences through the act of listening, which ultimately becomes a sensitive valve for sentience and the intuition of spacetime.
GENERAL RELATIVITY & THE SPECULATIVE CONVERSION OF SPACETIME INTO SOUND
The conceptual development of the project is grounded on a basic thought experiment; the hypothetical conversion of spacetime into sound.
The creation and development of a speculative model of spacetime-to-sound conversion is one of the main aspects of the research, that facilitates conceptual and experiential approaches to the phenomenon of presence. This model was sketched through an algorithm and lately developed into custom Max-for-live devices that modulated the spatial sound in real time.
The inquiry into spacetime and the behaviour of the gravitational field as conceptualised by General Relativity is one of the main pillars of the research. General relativity suggests that celestial presence (planets, galaxies, dark matter, black holes.. etc.) bends spacetime.
“In this sense, it is through the formulation of the theory of General Relativity that a new paradigm is introduced, where spacetime (via the gravitational field) can be formulated as an oscillatory field. Following this line of thought, the project performs the speculative conversion of spacetime into sound with the intention to model an aural field that can bring the phenomenon of presence to awareness via sound.”
A parallel line is stablished through this model. If celestial presence bends and stretches spacetime, our custom aural space would stretch and bend around the presence of users, which as observers and centres of perspective and awareness, would be able to listen to these stretches, and thus they would be able to listen to their own presences formulated as an effect relative to a medium.
By being able to listen to the changes one introduces in the field, one gains access to a non-dualistic and purely energetic manifestation of their own presence. From a technical standpoint these experimental formulations are achieved in the installation through the working of the algorithm in tandem with the interactive system.
AURAL CONCAVITIES
As we mentioned in the previous paragraphs of this article, the model or algorithm is created in a way such that any presence that is introduced in the Auralisms’ sound-space has the power to bend and curve the sound. Whenever a user enters the installation’s space, they will generate an aural concavity around them. This means that sound will bend around their presence, and this will happen both at a sonic-intrinsic temporal level and at a topological spatial level. The installation’s algorithm creates an aura around every presence in real time that can only be experienced by the user through the act of listening.
In the diagram below we see four images. The first image from the first row corresponds to a mapped space which hasn’t been altered yet by any presence. In the second image from the first row we already see the distorsions and ripples introduced on the field. The small circles are indicators of presences (users) and the lines are showing the trajectories of movement of these presences (users).
PRESENCE IS SPATIALLY FLUID
“Auralisms” theorises presence as a spatially fluid phenomenon. In the installation, the act of being present and sentient in this presence, is transformed into an aural phenomenon. Here, the dualistic boundary between agent and medium blurs.
In “Auralisms”, the allocation of presence to a spatiotemporal region is a reflexive event, which returns to us via sound. “Presence”, in this context, produces self-evidence, as it sonically radiates outwards and reaches our ears. The concavity of “field-being”, aural presences and sonic torsions are mere consequences of the act of being present and the intensive complexities unfolded by the intimacy of a presence and the oscillatory medium that hosts it and births it at the same time.
THE MULTIPLICITY OF FIELD-BEING
Throughout the development of the research we encounter several levels of presence. This multiplicity introduces the notion of the multiple-bodied as an attribute of presence. This aspect of the research takes us closer to concepts and ideas taken from Eastern Philosophies, such as the subtle bodies. In Auralisms, the multiple states of presence are experienced in terms of real time spatial sound configurations that address the dimensional attributes of both space and time.
“Auralisms The Relativity of Acoustic Presence” A project by Constanza Bizraelli
The installation was developed utilising the 4Dsound technology at the SSI facilities.
Team: Constanza Bizraelli: creator and director Dimitris Menexopoulos: sound technology Lennart Melzer: Sound technology consultancy Giovanni Muzio: Visual composition & development André Souto: GR Physics consultancy
A special thanks to Vladimir Razhev, Gabriel Catren, Tessa Nijdam and Gabriela Nuñez Melgar Molinari.
Bibliography
Interview to Constanza Bizraelli in “Sound Practices in the Global South” - Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
