Sound=Space

SOUND=SPACE is an electronic musical instrument that is played - by one person or several at the same time - by moving around in an empty space.

It consists of a system of ultrasonic sensors that very accurately picks up the positions and movement of people within the space, linked to a computer and a synthesiser and/or sampler that produces sounds accordingly - gelhaar.org

The effect is like walking or moving some part of your body across imaginary keyboards which are spread around the floor of a room.

The system can be programmed to accommodate spaces of almost any shape and to produce many different styles of music, employing an endless variety of sounds, e.g. instrumental sounds like sitar, drums, piano, trumpets, sampled sounds, sounds of the environment and even spoken words.

SOUND=SPACE is one of the most exciting applications of high technology and computers in the field of music, projected images and communication. It has colossal possibilities for education, entertainment and therapy, for the general public, for the disabled and the unsighted alike.

It was conceived and designed by Rolf Gehlhaar in 1984 and the first version of it was developed in 1985, in collaboration with P.Prevot and LIMCA, a small computer music studio in Gascony, France.

A second, improved and expanded version was developed in the UK in 1987-89, assisted by the technical expertise of ZINGARO Designs Ltd. and the formidable programming skills of Per Hartmann.

The latest version, much enhanced, was developed by Rolf Gehlhaar in 1998/99, employing the object oriented music programming environment MAX / MSP with a parallel possibility of using the measurements in the context of Director programs to manipulate images and generate graphics which are projected onto the walls that delimit the space.

For a detailed description of SOUND=SPACE see: Rolf Gehlhaar: SOUND=SPACE, the interactive musical environment, CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW, Vol 6, Part 1, ISBN 3-7186-5116-5, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991

SOUND=SPACE is a multi-functional computer controlled interactive electronic environmental musical "instrument" played by moving about in an empty space surveyed by an Ultrasonic Ranging System.

This system, employing ultrasonic echo-location, very precisely measures the positions and movement of any persons or objects within the surveyed space. These measurements are employed by a computer in the context of the SOUND=SPACE program to generate sounds (via the signal processing capabilities of MAX) and / or MIDI commands that control sound synthesisers or samplers.Generally speaking, the SOUND=SPACE Programme consists of a trunk program with several branches.

The trunk programme provides the measurement algorithms and background structure; the branch programmes provide different musical topographies (ways of structuring the space musically and controlling the synthesisers). Each branch of the programme may exist in numerous versions: every version creates a different kind of music - based upon different organisational principles, offering different types of control by the players, different sounds, rhythms, pitches, harmonies, musical styles, etc.).