Dmitry Shubin. DIRECT(ions): multichannel interactive audiovisual installation
Electronics, piano, video projection.
2020

DIRECT(ions) is an interactive music with modal composition, determined by the listener. The installation is a virtual sphere with sound sources located around it: when the sphere rotates, the position of the sound sources in space changes.

They say that Pythagoras taught his students from behind a screen, so as not to distract them from the deep content of his lectures, which he called "Akusmat" (in Greek means "sayings"). The role of the screen in interactive acusmatic music is played by the virtual sphere in which the listener is located, who controls the sound field of the installation using the joystick or mouse, so that you can freely move around the sound space.

Loudspeaker orchestras, various versions of which currently exist (French Acousmonium, Austrian The Acousmatic Project, American Audium and others) use a huge number of sound sources (often up to 40 or more) to create the effect of the total sound field in which the listener is located. At the same time, Acousmonium is created for live execution of the acusmatic, i.e. written, music. The performer (the role of which in most cases is the composer himself) distributes sound masses in space in real time with a special mixer that allows you to adjust the volume of sound sources.

However, the listener in this situation is as static as when listening to any other music - he does not participate in the process in any way. Interactive music puts the listener in a virtual Acousmonium and puts it in the place of the performer - and partly the composer. The performer is no longer needed - the listener himself controls the distribution of sound sources in space. Moreover, the composition itself becomes directly dependent on the listener (modal composition), since it is built by him - the sequence of sounding of the channels, the speed of movement along the spherical plane on which the sound sources are located, depends on the listener, who thus becomes a "co-author" composer. Each listening to an interactive work is different from another and is no longer repeated.

In some way, DIRECT(ions) is similar to the Lego constructor, since it is music that is created by the listener himself from pre-prepared "blocks".

The installation uses Ambisonics and VR Audio technologies to listen to multi-channel works with surround sound. At the same time, the presence of multichannel equipment is completely optional - the installation is designed to listen with any stereo (and even mono) devices and can be fully retuned even on a smartphone.

Virtual installation: http://dmitryshubin.ru/directions