lab-workshops — spæs — lab for spatial aesthetics in sound Berlin

Critical Immersion Studies // Sound Scenography // Thinking of sound-as-space // Verbalising sound and space // Experiencing sound-as-space // Sound in the production of space // Composing with sculptural sound phenomena // Beyond the Visual // The spatiality of Sound in immersive media // Intermedial spatial composition // Evaluation of spatial aesthetics in sound // Sound-image relations

^{For workshop bookings, please get in touch.}

Critical Immersion Studies

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma

Over the past decade, ‘immersion’ has become a ubiquitous term – claimed alike by loudspeaker manufacturers, the gaming industry and academia as a marker of technical sophistication, across concert venues, multichannel studios, audio-visual caves, VR, AR and the fine arts. This seminar approaches immersion critically: not as a technical achievement measured by fidelity, but as a site of perceptual, social and political inquiry, in which space functions as much as a domain of control as of experience. Surveying theories of space and spatiality from the past eighty years, and drawing on artistic and philosophical approaches from phenomenology to critical geography, participants examine how immersive environments shape perception and coexistence, and how artists might work critically within and against their conditions. Space, I argue, has become one of the most consequential subjects we can define, compose, and imagine.}

Sound scenography: auditory communication in staged spaces

^{Johannes Scherzer

Staged spaces – from museum and brand exhibitions to ordinary architecture and immersive media – communicate on factual, contextual, emotional and bodily levels, yet this communication is usually approached visually first. The sonic dimension of immersive media environments such as virtual reality or 360° film can equally be analysed and approached from the perspective of communication. But what do we know about communication through sound? This workshop addresses the problems we commonly face with sound, offers new perspectives on the role of listening, and develops strategies for narrative spaces that meaningfully engage auditory experience. It is relevant to professionals across exhibition-making, architecture, design and media production.}

Thinking of sound-as-space

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Johannes Scherzer

How we think about sound and space largely determines our actions in the production of space. This workshop introduces relevant theories intersecting with sound and space, examining spatial aesthetics from perspectives including music, film, architecture, theatre, VR and XR, scenography, atmosphere, phenomenology, communication and linguistics. Theory is grounded by linking it to direct experience and to its verbalisation, concluding with the implications for spatial practice.}

Verbalising sound-as-space

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Johannes Scherzer

The ability to verbalise experiences of sound and space is foundational to collaboration and creative practice. Participants learn approaches to documenting these experiences in order to construct a shared vocabulary, comparing findings from situational listening sessions against existing conceptual frameworks. The workshop raises awareness of verbalisation’s still-inconsistent nature, equipping participants to engage in this much-needed discourse.}

Experiencing sound-as-space

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Johannes Scherzer

The capacity to analyse aesthetic experience is a key prerequisite for spatial thinking and the production of space. Through guided listening sessions and an introduction to methods of attentional listening and experiential analysis, participants develop a deeper understanding of how the experience of space is shaped by its auditory qualities – and how these qualities can be changed.}

Sound in the production of space

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Johannes Scherzer

Knowledge of the tools for producing space is essential to realising ideas and concepts. This workshop surveys methods, techniques and technologies for creating spatial sound phenomena and co-producing space through sound, inviting participants to experiment with auditory interventions within the building. It closes by reflecting on spatial practice and discussing concrete design strategies.}

Composing with sculptural sound phenomena in virtual auditory environments

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma

Electronic and computer music have so far opened space as a compositional dimension chiefly through multichannel loudspeaker systems configured as an acoustic shell around the audience. This workshop instead introduces an aesthetic practice that composes space as a prerequisite for sonic-sculptural material, artistically incorporating performance environments of varying complexity. Electroacoustic space-sound phenomena arising from specific (re)production processes are theoretically motivated and experienced in practice, with attention to their acoustic foundations and artistic po(e)tential.}

Beyond the visual. Music, sound and architecture – towards fluid spatiotemporal environments

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Constantinos Militadis

This is research curriculum investigates spatio-temporal aesthetics at the interface of architecture and music, with particular attention to perception, creativity, design, and composition. Led together with architect and space theorist Constantinos Militadis, the workshoo develops a shared vocabulary for thinking through fluid, spatio-temporal environments across sound and architecture.}

The spatiality of sound in immersive media environments

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma
Johannes Scherzer

This workshop enables participants from all disciplines to understand how experience, verbalisation and theory can inform a constant, iterative reflection on creative practice. It approaches spatial aesthetics as a daily practice of world-making inherent to every compositional act – with sound in general, and with loudspeaker environments in particular.}

Sound installation art: intermedial spatial composition

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma}

^{Interest and activity in sound installation have increased dramatically over the past decade – a rise in artistic involvement that reflects both a natural fusion of artistic fields through technology, and a direct response to our multimedia-oriented society. This seminar introduces practical and theoretical approaches, which are then considered and applied in individual practice.}

Reflection and evaluation of spatial aesthetics in sound

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma

Johannes Scherzer

A strategic approach to reflecting on and evaluating spatial aesthetics in sound is valuable at both the outset and the conclusion of a project. Closing the circle back to the workshop on experiencing sound-as-space, this session introduces methods for the qualitative analysis of spatial aesthetics in sound across experience, verbalisation, theory and practice.}

Reflections on sound-image relations: strategies, experiments and fears of loss

^{Gerriet Krishna Sharma

Image-sound relations in film, television, installation and video games form the subject of this enquiry. Beginning with early attempts at audiovisual staging (Lescaux), a historical overview is established from which to derive strategies and explain perceptual principles for the analysis and practical treatment of audiovisual media tod.}