ABSTRACT. Single point perspective 3D panoramic video and FOA ambisonic recordings are generally experienced from a relatively stable listening position. This presents a problem when such media are incorporated into room-scale XR environments, where the participant may translate, change height, and continuously alter their orientation. This paper presents Contextacy (2025, 2026), an XR artwork developed for Meta Quest 3 in the Unity 3D environment that explores strategies for composing with single point perspective audiovisual media. The principal technical contribution is a scripted solution referred to as a Dynamic Audio Ring consisting of four first-order ambisonic audio sources that follow the participant's XR Origin. As the participant moves, the relative levels of the sources are attenuated to produce changing spatial relationships around the listener. Ambisonic material is procedurally replaced as sources become less relevant to the participant's position, with seamless crossfading used to introduce new material. A second listener oriented stereo layer responds continuously to head orientation and vertical movement. Pitch is subtly modulated as the participant looks upward or downward, while changes in body height can introduce a second stereo source through crossfading. This system is intended to produce a tactile response to bodily movement rather than to represent locatable sound objects within the XR scene. Together, these systems address the problem of composing for a dynamic listener using ambisonic material originally associated with fixed positions. Rather than attempting continuous 6DOF reconstruction of a recorded acoustic environment, Contextacy uses procedural source management, attenuation, crossfading, and bodily interaction to construct an evolving auditory environment around the moving participant.

ABSTRACT. Rustle is a performative installation by Minus Collettivo that integrates research on spatialized electroacoustic improvisation with the distributed and decentralized use of video materials generated in real time. The project is situated within a broader line of research developed by the collective, aimed at redefining musical dialogue beyond traditional electroacoustic categories through models derived from soundscape analysis. The four authors will present focused contributions addressing the work’s artistic and scientific dimensions: the hybridization of performative and installation forms, spatialization as an expressive paradigm, the distributed configuration of video devices and live processing techniques, as well as the relationships between electroacoustic improvisation and soundscapes, including an expanded temporal perception of listening and a reconceptualization of musical elements.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents an ongoing research initiative by Studio Pase between acoustic and electro-acoustic space roles and relationships in the creation of immersive and spatial audio works. Building on previous site-specific research that integrated acoustic survey, multichannel diffusion, and the interaction between technical measurement and artistic gesture, the present contribution extends that line of inquiry toward a broader compositional framework. In this perspective, acoustic conditions become operative material for writing, simulating, and developing new works from the earliest stages of the creative process.

The paper introduces a prototype software workflow developed to support this approach through simulation-based spatial authoring. The system combines a real-space matrix renderer, IR-based acoustic zones, and virtual reference layouts (“speaker-objects”), allowing authors to design spatial relations to test and experiment before the physical rig is available. This framework establishes a distinction between the design process and the available space of reproduction, helping anticipate constraints, verify compositional choices, and preserve spatial coherence across different listening environments.

The paper addresses the conceptual core of the prototype and the methodology it enables: composing with simulated acoustic space while articulating site-specificity and transferability within the same creative process. It grounds this framework in a series of case studies centered on the capture, simulation, and compositional use of acoustic response within specific architectural contexts.

ABSTRACT. In practice, spatial sound is shaped by the conditions of its infrastructure. The studio determines what is possible — its speaker configurations, acoustic properties, and institutional context all inform the work made within it. The Spatial Sound Consortium intends to facilitate access to the studio infrastructure and sustain a dialogue across various technical and creative affordances. Established by Victoria Keddie in collaboration with Harvestworks (NYC), the Consortium connects sound labs, studios, and organizations working internationally with multichannel and spatial sound. Participants of the Consortium are based in both academic research centers and independent arts organizations: the Columbia University Computer Music Center, SARC at Queen's University Belfast, BEAST at the University of Birmingham, NOTAM (Oslo), MONOM (Berlin), Sounding Future (Graz), the University of Pennsylvania, CLEAT (Chicago), and New Ear, Inc. (NYC). This range is explicitly a non-hierarchical network, one that places institutional and independent entities in ongoing exchange. This panel brings together Victoria Keddie (University of Pennsylvania/Harvestworks, NYC), Annie Mahtani (BEAST, University of Birmingham), and Zeynep Bulut (SARC, Queen's University Belfast), three interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners working at the intersection of spatial sound, multimedia distributed performance, and composition. Drawing from distinct technical infrastructures, architectural contexts, and artistic approaches, the panel considers how spatial sound practice evolves across differing institutional and creative environments, and what becomes possible when those environments are placed in direct dialogue. Annie Mahtani works at BEAST, Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre, known for its loudspeaker orchestra and diffusion-based performance practice, bringing expertise in context-responsive spatial audio across divergent technical infrastructures since 1982. Zeynep Bulut works at SARC, Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Sound and Music, a renowned hub for academic and creative research in sound and music since 2004. Victoria Keddie founded the Spatial Sound Consortium through Harvestworks, a New York City organization supporting artists working with new and evolving technologies since 1977, which provides an infrastructure through which the Consortium operates. The Consortium's live program comprises two intersecting components: a travelling performance series in which each studio hosts new works developed through a shared spatial framework, and a circulating micro-residency exchange. The series positions each space as an active environment through which a sample work can be heard differently in tandem with the performance space and explored via comparative listening. The circulating micro-residency exchange emphasises process, translation, and pedagogy rather than technical comparison or finished outcomes. Each embedded micro-residency centers on a single spatial sound situation that moves through distributed responses and shared listening. The specific features of each space shape the sound. What circulates is hence not a fixed work but an open proposition. Together, these two components propose a model for spatial sound practice grounded in access, adaptability, and creative risk-taking. The program develops in parallel with the Consortium's browser-based virtual acoustic stage, addressed in a companion submission — a relationship in which performance practice directly shapes the tool, opening new critical perspectives on what distributed spatial performance can be and do. The suggestion is to reflect on the documentation of cross-lab performances and micro-residency exchanges, artist accounts of how participation has shifted practice, and the Consortium's distributed live programme. In doing so, we intend to explore what becomes possible for spatial sound as a field when its labs begin working as a shared, open, and continually evolving network. Building on the model proposed above, this panel will discuss a set of questions central to current spatial sound practice: What are the possibilities, challenges, and implications of working across the differing technical and creative affordances of multiple studios? How might working within these spaces in-between open new creative and research possibilities? How might this practice inform and expand the fields of spatial sound, architectural acoustics, and immersive media?

ABSTRACT. In-Camera Visual Effects (ICVFX) in virtual production provide major advantages over traditional green-screen workflows, including natural lighting, spatial realism, and faster creative decision-making. Integrating immersive audio production into the same environment can add cross-modal sensory congruence, spatial accuracy, shared metadata, and high-quality reference audio for post-production. To investigate this convergence, Futures Studio was established in November 2024 at Royal Holloway, University of London, in collaboration with the University of Surrey. The facility features a 25-channel (5+16+4) AoIP immersive audio system surrounding a 10m x 8m x 4m performance area, integrated with a 10.5m x 3.5m curved LED Virtual Production wall at one end. To accommodate the competing needs of spatial audio and film capture, the studio utilizes a custom, vertically adjustable truss system that allows for the reconfiguration of the median loudspeaker layer. The facility serves a dual purpose: supporting novel production workflows, and acting as a technical testbed for a future, next-generation production space at Pinewood Studios, UK. This paper documents the studio design and presents an acoustic characterization based on ISO 3382-1 metrics, including analysis of the challenges introduced by a large-scale curved LED surface. To support the research community and enable digital twin development, the paper also releases an open-access dataset of sixth-order Ambisonic room impulse responses (RIRs) captured from five source positions within the volume, per-speaker mono RIRs, and high-resolution LiDAR scans for remote auralization and 3D reconstruction. The dataset will be released publicly upon acceptance.

ABSTRACT. Immersive audio systems are conventionally designed to surround the listener — but surrounding is not the only way to immerse. This paper argues that beamforming compact loudspeaker arrays — the Icosahedral Loudspeaker (IKO) and the 393 beamformer — produce a fundamentally different form of immersion: not the enclosure of the listener in a simulated acoustic world, but an intensification of spatial consciousness through directional room-coupling. Where audience-enveloping systems suppress the built environment in pursuit of virtual presence, beamforming systems require it: without room-coupling there is no composition, only playback.

Drawing on a relational concept of space (Lefebvre, Löw), the empirically validated sculptural quality framework (Directionality, Contour, Plasticity; Sharma, Frank, and Zotter, 2019), and the concept of listener-determined liveness, we show that acoustic embodiment — the restoration of directional room-coupling to electronic sound — is the condition for all three. We further extend this framework to AI-generated voice through the SIPOS concept (Lercher, 2025; Simondon, 1992): multiple simultaneous IKO beams give AI voice not one body but many, each mirror source a distinct spatial individuation of the vocal reservoir.

In doing so, the paper proposes beamforming composition as a form of acoustic heritage practice in the present tense: not the reconstruction of lost spaces, but the intensification of what is here and unheard in the built environment.

Case studies from Sharma's electroacoustic music (mirage 1–6, polycluster I.–X.) and Lercher's AI voice performance (delta-sirens, Murmur and Voxations) ground the framework in compositional practice and open a research agenda for the empirical study of sculptural sound qualities in beamformed AI voice.

ABSTRACT. The global comfort scheme applied to hospital design considers sound, light, biophilia, and art, as key elements on the perception and experience of patients, visitors, and staff within specific spaces. The study is based on a collection of research and case studies inspired by both the Third Carer philosophy and methodology (an approach to healthcare architecture that activates the role of the built environment within the healing process) and the BRIC INAIL 2024 ID07 project (non-auditory effects of noise in healthcare buildings) involving five Italian universities. The research proposes a synergy between human perception and predictive acoustic modelling to reveal aspects of disturbance often overlooked by traditional metrics, such as loss of privacy or anxiety triggered by unnecessary sounds. These subjective insights are translated into technical requirements within 3D acoustic models, used to test specific scenarios and architectural strategies. Building and room acoustics data, collected through measurement campaigns, are combined with variables representing conditions of perceived well-being or discomfort at the multisensory and psychological levels, as experienced by patients and healthcare professionals, according to the indices and procedures of the global comfort design scheme. This paper offers a reflection on the role of immersive acoustics in environments dedicated to well-being, contemplation, artistic enjoyment, and mental health, highlighting the potential of sound as an architectural material capable of transforming the quality of experience in healthcare environments.

ABSTRACT. Spatial audio research has long worked toward compelling listening experiences across extended listening areas, including through wave field synthesis, higher-order approaches, and increasingly capable multichannel systems. In practice, however, the introduction of immersive audio into a live performance venue is shaped not only by rendering method, but by room complexity, budget, artistic workflow, operational priorities, and the need to serve mainstream programming reliably. For many public venues, the practical goal is less exact soundfield reproduction than the creation of a compelling and sufficiently consistent spatial display across a large house, in ways that are robust, intelligible, and meaningful to artists and audiences.

This paper presents a longitudinal case study of bringing spatial audio into a major live music venue (City Recital Hall, Sydney), from early advocacy and technical concept through deployment and several years of use in programming and performance. It combines two complementary perspectives: one from longstanding work in object audio, auralization, and large-scale spatial sound design; the other from venue programming and the day-to-day introduction of new listening experiences to artists, audiences, and institutional stakeholders. The result is a view of immersive audio not only as a system, but as a live venue practice.

The study examines the practical challenges of cost, justification, evangelism, skills, trust, and workflow, and reviews the effect of spatial capability on programming, artistic uptake, audience response, and venue identity over a three-to-four-year period. Particular attention is given to which artists and genres made strongest use of the system, how familiarity with the venue as an instrument developed, how spatial listening featured in promotion and audience perception, and where the promise of immersive audio aligned with or diverged from operational reality. It also reflects on the relative impact of different spatial approaches and operational modes, including object-based presentation, panning and movement, diffuse ambience, live acoustic enhancement, audience-responsive envelopment, and other augmentations, considered in terms of their practical role in shaping the event and audience experience.

The paper argues that successful outcomes are better understood across several coupled layers: spatial system design, spatial advocacy, spatial programming, and spatial artistic engagement. In doing so, it offers a grounded framework for thinking about effort, value, and impact in real venue projects, and about how immersive audio helps not only fill a room with sound, but fill a house with audiences, artists, and meaning.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the acoustic performance of bio-based sound-absorbing panels made from sunflower agricultural residues and evaluates their application as divider elements in open-plan office environments through numerical simulations. The research is motivated by the increasing demand for sustainable construction materials capable of combining environmental compatibility, low production impact, and effective acoustic treatment. The proposed panels are manufactured using different fractions of sunflower stalks, including pith and bark, combined with natural binders to obtain fully biodegradable composite materials. Their acoustic behavior is characterized in terms of acoustic properties and integrated into a virtual office environment to assess their influence on room acoustics and speech-related parameters. Numerical simulations were carried out to analyze the effectiveness of the panels when used as spatial dividers in open-plan office layouts, with particular attention to reverberation control, speech privacy, and overall acoustic comfort. The results demonstrate that sunflower-based acoustic panels can provide significant acoustic performance while offering a sustainable alternative to conventional synthetic materials, supporting the development of environmentally responsible acoustic solutions for modern indoor environments. Additionally, A dedicated multi-channel acquisition system based on Analog Devices’ A2B technology is proposed for synchronized acoustic measurements, enabling reliable characterization of the tested materials and configurations to validate the finite element modeling.

ABSTRACT. Binaural audio rendering enables immersive spatial sound reproduction by replicating human auditory perception and is increasingly explored in loudspeaker-based systems such as automotive headrests. This paper presents an enhanced crosstalk cancellation approach for binaural audio headrest systems, combining space-averaged filtering with head-related transfer function (HRTF) interpolation. The proposed method addresses practical limitations of measurement procedures by enabling accurate filter design from a reduced and potentially asymmetric set of HRTFs. Interpolation techniques reconstruct a denser spatial sampling, improving robustness across listening positions. Evaluation in terms of channel separation shows that the crosstalk filter derived by interpolated HRTFs enhances performance compared with the filter designed by asymmetric measurements. In contrast, HRTF upsampling did not affect channel separation when the filter was designed from symmetric positions.

ABSTRACT. Rustle is a performative installation by Minus Collettivo that integrates research on spatialized electroacoustic improvisation with the distributed and decentralized use of video materials generated in real time. The project is situated within a broader line of research developed by the collective, aimed at redefining musical dialogue beyond traditional electroacoustic categories through models derived from soundscape analysis. The four authors will present focused contributions addressing the work’s artistic and scientific dimensions: the hybridization of performative and installation forms, spatialization as an expressive paradigm, the distributed configuration of video devices and live processing techniques, as well as the relationships between electroacoustic improvisation and soundscapes, including an expanded temporal perception of listening and a reconceptualization of musical elements.

ABSTRACT. Spherical harmonic room impulse responses (SHRIRs) measured with a spherical microphone array can preserve the spatial characteristics of real acoustic environments. However, finite-order acquisition and measurement noise often blur direct-sound localization and reduce the direct-to-reverberant ratio (DRR), resulting in an overly reverberant auditory impression. This paper presents a measured-SHRIR-driven hybrid sound field synthesis framework that decomposes a measured SHRIR into direct sound, early reflections, and late reverberation. Direct sound and early reflections are extracted from dominant directional events in the early part of the SHRIR. Late reverberation is separated from the late part as a diffuse component using higher-order spatial impulse response rendering (HO-SIRR). Direct sound is reproduced using near-field compensated higher-order Ambisonics (NFC-HOA), with an explicit source distance. Early reflections are reconstructed as HOA-based virtual sources. Late reverberation is decorrelated and rendered as a diffuse tail. Component-wise control based on a target DRR and reverberation time is also introduced. Subjective evaluation used a 42-channel spherical loudspeaker array. Perceived reverberance was evaluated by presenting, over headphones, binaural recordings captured in the real environment and corresponding loudspeaker-reproduced stimuli. The proposed method was rated lower than the method employing vector-based amplitude panning (VBAP) for direct-sound reproduction, but higher than a method based on conventional HOA decoding. Localization in direction and distance was evaluated in a virtual-reality environment, where listeners indicated source position using a head-mounted display while stimuli were reproduced through the loudspeaker array. Compared with the VBAP-based method, the proposed method provided more stable localization and clearer auditory images.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the results of a experimental campaign conducted in the munucipal theatre in PIacenza

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the acoustic analysis of the Opera Theatre in Montecastello di Vibio, Italy. The measurements were carried out in accordance with ISO 3382-1 and analyzed to understand the acoustic response of the room under the description of the main acoustic parameters. The measured values have been assessed on the octave bands between 125 Hz and 4 kHz. The paper discusses a comparison with theatre 1763 in Bologna, realized in the same period, and characterized by typical colonnades at stalls level before that space was boxed during the 19th century. The results show that the reverberation time was found around 0.5 s, which is suitable for prose performances and camera music

ABSTRACT. Acoustic measurements are essential for characterizing the acoustic response of a room or environment. Traditional measurement methodologies typically employ omnidirectional or binaural microphones in order to comply with standard acoustic requirements, while the adoption of more advanced technologies is generally limited to academic and research contexts. This paper presents MIMO measurements conducted across Piazza Cavour in Rimini using a 64-channel spherical microphone array and a customised dodecahedral loudspeaker, designed so that each transducer can be independently controlled. The characterization of MIMO measurements addresses the growing demand for immersive listening experiences, particularly within the gaming industry, where realistic spatial sound reproduction is fundamental for enhancing virtual environments.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the spatial acoustical characterization of the Teatro Grande in Brescia, Italy, a historic 19th-century Italian opera house. Measurements were performed using a Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technique. A 32-channel spherical loudspeaker array was used as the sound source, and a 32-channel spherical microphone array (Eigenmike) was used as the receiver. The acoustic response was captured using exponential sine sweep signals convolved with Ambisonics beamforming filters, yielding 3rd-order spatial room impulse responses (SRIRs). Acoustic parameters such as Reverberation Time (T30), Early Decay Time (EDT), Clarity (C80), and Lateral Fraction (Jlf) were calculated in octave bands using the AcouPar software. The results reveal the spatial distribution of early reflections and late reverberation across the stalls, boxes, and stage, highlighting the acoustic impact of the historical horseshoe-shaped architecture and the limitations of the signal-to-noise ratio at larger source-receiver distances.

ABSTRACT. This paper describes the similarities and differneces among sound propagation in two teatres in the Iasi Region, in Romania

ABSTRACT. This paper describes the similarities and differneces among sound propagation in two teatres in the Iași and Piatra Neamț, in Romania

ABSTRACT. Classroom acoustics is often considered only for intelligibility. This papers shows the results of the 3D acoustic measurements conducted in the room 6.2 in which the previous edition of I3DA2023 took place

ABSTRACT. This paper deals with further calculations of 3D acoutic maps of sound propagation in the two Roman theatres of Pompeii: the Odeon and the Theatre. The analysis copares 3D maps in the same positions and describes similarities and differences among the two theatres

ABSTRACT. Research in outdoor acoustics is not widely studied as room acoustics under an immersive-experience point of view. However, the combination of 3D audio with a panoramic view makes the urban environment more engaging when played back. For this campaign of measurements, a 64-channels spherical array microphone has been used corresponding to a resolution equal to high order ambisonics (HOA), but for simplicity it has been analyzed up to the 3rd order (O3A). This paper deals with the analysis of a soundscape taken in Piazza Trepponti in Comacchio, a historical square located in Emilia Romagna, Italy. The square is a not very busy in terms of road traffic noise, and it is characterized to be event gathering for many citizens that like to find the opportunity to socially engage and interact with other people. In addition, its historical value related to the architecture gives more importance to this study as it has never been carried out under this perspective. The audio recording has been analysed by using environmental parameters such as loudness, sharpness, prominence and roughness.