Further Research in Spatial-Aural Interaction
Dérive Entre Mille Sons is a musical work that uses mobile media technology to artistically examine the relationship between music and the listener. Contemporary media technologies, be they at work, home, or in your pocket, emphasize playback. These devices are designed to facilitate the storage and retrieval of pre-made media assets. This work leverages the processing capabilities that rest dormant within these technologies. Drawing from the writings of Guy Debord and the practice of the dérive, "drifting" is replaced with tilting a Nintendo Wii controller (Wiimote) and becomes a metaphor for instrumental performance in which the openness and emergence of interactivity is articulated through sound, as music. Dérive Entre Mille Sons was a logical extension of my composition-instrument studies as it questioned the physicality of interaction for stand-alone musical works.
Tilting interaction moves the listener through sonic zones. As with psychogeographic zones discovered in the dérive, generative sound clusters and musical phrases are organized into adjacent spaces. Tilting the device in the direction of a sonic space that draws their curiosity "moves" the listener towards that zone so that it can be heard more clearly. In the process, the relationship between adjacent sonic zones is in a constant state of transformation.
Dérive Entre Mille Sons from Norbert Herber on Vimeo.
Dérive Entre Mille Sons reveals its sonic zones, acoustic horizon, Wiimote controller data, and running update of which sounds are currently playing. As a sound-only piece, this screen was useful for testing and debugging the work. Those who experience the work never see this image. What they hear is purely a matter of position within virtual space and movement with the Wii controller.
Dérive Entre Mille Sons Recording