Holophonic Sound in IRCAM's Concert Hall: Technological and Aesthetic Practices

This article presents a report on technological and aesthetic practices in the variable-acoustics performance hall, Espace de Projection, at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique. The hall is surrounded by a 350-loudspeaker array for sound-field reproduction using holophonic approaches such as wave-field synthesis and higher-order Ambisonics. First we present the design and implementation of the audio system and discuss the challenges of both hardware and software architectures. This is followed by a discussion of spatial composition techniques, aesthetic approaches, and methodologies for composing computer music for high-density loudspeaker arrays, explored through the paradigmatic examples of pieces produced by two artist-in-research residencies.