WWW Ircam: Real-Time Musical Interactions

Topophonie

Topophonies are virtual navigable sound spaces, composed of sounding or audio-graphic objects. Graphic and sounding shapes or objects are audio-graphic when visual and audio modalities are synchronized. In virtual reality and videogames, we know how to make scenes composed of point-shaped elements: graphic and sound (i.e. a spot representing an object). However, there is no tool enabling navigation to make scenes consisting of very great numbers of interactive visual and sound elements. Nor dispersed elements such as in a crowd, a flow of traffic, foliage, or rain.

The research project Topophonie proposes lines of research and innovative developments for sound and visual navigation in spaces composed of multiple and disseminated sound and visual elements. By working in a scientific multidisciplinary group (digital audio, visualization, sound design) with enterprises specialized in the domain of interactive multimedia activities, the project Topophonie is going to conceive and develop models, interfaces and audio-graphic renderings of groups of granular animated and spatialized objects.

The project team is composed of researchers specialized in granular sound renderings and in advanced interactive graphic renderings, as well as digital designers and enterprises specialized in the relevant fields of application.

The project is currently in the phase of implementing the applications for use. The completed works produce interfaces that define and control multimedia scenes and tools for real-time rendering on synchronized audio and visual channels.

The first production was the installation of Topophonie Mobile augmented audio reality during the Futur en Seine festival. This installation augmented a position-determined walk in a public park with an acoustic ambiance on the theme of water via the Navidium application for interactive audio-graphical digital maps.

The other strong points of the research carried out in this project are the conception of a new method of synthesizing sound textures, and the dissemination of knowledge via two international workshops on audio-graphical modeling organized as a part of the project in 2011.