blake johnston

2023

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intro/exo is a composition for a bespoke built and designed headset that allows for the audience to experience extraordinary spatial and sonic phenomena. The headset consists of two loudspeakers, which sit on the ears like headphones, and two surface transducers that sit on the cheekbones of the wearer. These transducers vibrate the cheekbones and skull of the wearer, allowing for them to experience sounds seemingly emanating from within the head. With these two different types of sound sources, complex and novel spatialisations are possible.

 

The work investigates the creative and experiential affordances of the bespoke headset and the audience's perceptual system by placing the listener's head as the site of exploration, creating sounds that move around and inside the listener's body. The work employs binaural techniques to create hyper-realistic sonic environments with convincing spatial-morphological qualities. These environments are contrasted with the intimacy of the surface transducers, which create sounds that emanate from within the body.