5th Sound and Music Computing Conference
‘Space in Sound – Sound in Space’
July 31 – August 3, 2008
Technische Universität Berlin – Germany

http://www.smc08.org

Every era develops its specific, culturally defined awareness of space as well as forms of its aesthetic reification. In music, we can trace a development from an architectural place of sound to the symbolical space of formal and structural projections and finally to the imaginitive, musically immanent space of compositional fantasy. From thereon the actual space can be functionalised musically, it can, however, also be opened to and expanded by technical spaces. These, as digital simulations, enable both universal manipulation and boundless scaling. The conception of an «acoustic cyberspace» becomes constitutive for new aesthetical conceptions of form as well as for the generation and manipulation of sounds.

In 2007 the Technische Universität Berlin has installed the largest wavefield synthesis system worldwide with 832 channels and 2700 loudspeakers in a 700 seats lecture hall. During the 5th SMC „Space in Sound – Sound in Space“ works for this system will be performed. This system will be augmented by a 20 channel Klangdome and an Acousmonium provided by GRM Paris in the same hall. The simultaneous installation allows a combination of different sound systems with their individual qualities as well as an analytical listening of the same works performed on different systems.

The scientific program of the SMC08 will have a special focus on different concepts and technologies of spatialisation, including sound art, acousmatic music, stereophonic reproduction, and wavefield synthesis. The talks will cover historical, aesthetical, technical as well as genre specific aspects of sound and space.

Sound and Music Computing (SMC) is supervised jointly by AFIM (Association Française d’Informatique Musicale), AIMI (Associazione Italiana di Informatica Musicale), DEGEM (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik), and HACI (Hellenic Association of Music Informatics). It aims at promoting exchanges between European countries around topics related to sound and music computing, and to give them an international dimension.

Organised by the German Association of Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM ) in collaboration with the Audio Communication Group.