Virtual Audio
Simulated Tonal Space

1997

"Virtual Audio", the digital space-sound installation, represents two typical virtual reality applications: the processes of "moving around" in a space and examining its acoustic characteristics.

Equipped with a set of headphones and a tracker, a special sensor to allow for movement in three-dimensional space, the visitor can explore the space behind the monitor, whereby the stroll can also become a flight by means of computer graphics.

Eight different tonal sources represented by graphic effects are located in the space. The tones and their reverberation characteristics vary depending upon the position of the visitor within the space, an effect that goes far beyond stereophonic or quadrophonic sound.

If you move past a sound source, you experience life-like effects such as the frequency shift associated with the Doppler effect. If you position yourself behind a tonal source, you perceive the sound to be softer than you would if you were standing directly in front of it. Music coming from a long way off seems to be much more muffled than sounds coming from your immediate vicinity.