Opportunity
Der Klangdom — The sound dome
"... I was interested in integrating the sound dome into the production because it affords novel opportunities of allowing acoustically and electronically generated music to disperse and drift through the entire performance space.
This high-tech instrument was developed over three years at the Institute for Music and Acoustics at ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) in Karlsruhe. It's exciting to send out sounds throughout the whole performance space, allowing rhythms to chase each other and make a completely new composition out of the original one, so to speak, letting the original written composition transform itself into a piece of living spatial architecture for the listener to wander through. Like shooting stars lighting up the night sky, the composition's many sounds leave traces in the sound dome's artificial sky which comprises several high-performance loudspeakers suspended above head height throughout the performance space.
The sound dome: Illustration of the loudspeakers' placement in space and of the sound movements of a total of thirty-two channels.[Screenshot: Software Zirkonium © 2006-7 by ZKM Karlsruhe; Planning and programming: Reto Stadelmann]
I was given a demonstration of this new technology in the Kubus at the ZKM. It was a tremendous acoustic experience. I stood by myself in the centre of this large empty hall and was exposed to sounds coming from all around me. It was like standing on a mountain top. I wasn't able to detect where the sounds were coming from. The music was everywhere, all around, wherever I went. It went round in circles, and each change of my position produced slight changes in what I was hearing. I enjoyed moving about. I could well imagine an audience enjoying moving freely about and dancing under a sound dome and realised immediately that this new technology would be an excellent fit with my interactive project..."
Reto Stadelmann, excerpt from Musik ist mein Leben
— experiences of composing and producing 'Opportunity', an
interactive music and dance production commissioned by the Cologne Music Festival 'ACHTBRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln' 2013
(source: Entlebucher Brattig 2014, Verlag Entlebucher Kunstverein)