Space, Place, Sound, and Memory: Immersive Experiences of the Past

听音乐是一种体验活动，它将听众与周围的环境和周围的人联系起来。在某种程度上，现场表演行业的近期增长是这种在公共空间中连接和分享音乐体验的需求的直接结果。但现场表演的短暂性带来了真实的挑战。空间的物理属性和位置对活动的性质和表演的地理范围施加了限制，虽然录音可以捕捉表演的声音，但它们无法让听众感受到存在感和参与感。当我们考虑到早期的音乐表演时，这一挑战只会被放大：即使是在现代场地策划的表演也会失去许多具有历史意义的表演的细节。沉浸式技术为现代观众体验这些短暂的品质提供了巨大的潜力，并允许表演者重现历史表演，就像他们最初经历的那样。该项目汇集了来自学术界、产业界和文化界的跨学科专业知识，探索表演实践、游戏和虚拟现实、技术、文化和遗产的交汇点。我们将使用3D成像、双耳和环绕声以及房间脉冲响应来创建一个软件应用程序，让用户在精确建模的历史空间中体验早期音乐的表演。该应用程序的开发将借鉴我们的技术合作伙伴Biome Collective的开发经验，他们在使用移动的技术创建沉浸式增强现实体验方面拥有丰富的经验。我们将与两个对比鲜明的空间和相关的剧目合作：圣塞西莉亚大厅和罗斯林教堂。这两个地点都受益于已有的建筑研究，并且有大量的历史音乐会记录，这将使我们能够使用罗素收藏的乐器重现特定的音乐事件，以及著名的Binchois Consort与我们的软件相结合的唱礼拜仪式的表演。从观众的角度来看，我们将探索沉浸式媒体技术如何使我们更接近原始的体验，早期音乐，而从表演者和音乐学家的角度来看，它将使我们能够第一次系统地探索历史表演背景下的空间和场所概念。通过创造这种新技术的过程，我们将探索并创建一个关键的心理-物理线索的分类大纲，这些线索促进了共享模拟表演空间中的存在感和沉浸感，描述它们如何结合联合收割机来创造令人信服的空间，并研究使我们能够衡量其功效的方法。通过在虚拟空间中主持Binchois Consort的表演，我们还将有机会探索与表演相关的许多问题，这些问题有可能作为更深入的后续研究的基础：在虚拟空间中执行对性能实践的影响程度如何？将地理位置遥远的音乐家和观众聚集在同一个虚拟空间中，会带来哪些挑战和机遇？沉浸式媒体技术如何改变我们策划物理和数字表演空间的方式？如何利用它们来发展现有的受众和接触新的受众，特别是那些难以接触到的受众？最后一个问题与商业直接相关，特别是与我们的合作伙伴组织，皇家苏格兰国家管弦乐团，他们致力于利用技术作为工具来发展观众和扩展他们现有的外展工作，这表明了商业化和进一步发展的可能途径。RSNO已经同意帮助我们直接与他们的观众进行用户测试。

Listening to music is an experiential activity that connects listeners to their surroundings and to those around them. In part, the recent growth of the live performance industry is a direct consequence of this need to connect and share musical experiences in a communal space.But the transient nature of live performance presents real challenges. The physical properties and locations of spaces impose constraints on the nature of events and the geographical reach of performances, and, while recordings can capture the sound of performance, they stop short of allowing the listener to feel a sense of presence and participation. This is a challenge that is only amplified when one considers early music performances: even a curated performance in a modern venue loses much of the detail that characterises historic performance.Immersive technologies offer huge potential for modern audiences to experience these transient qualities, and for allowing performers to recreate historic performances as they would originally have been experienced. This project brings together cross-disciplinary expertise from a range of academic, industry and cultural partners to explore the point where performance practice, gaming and VR, technology, and culture and heritage meet.We will use 3D imaging, binaural and surround sound, and room-impulse responses to create a software application that allows users to experience the performance of early music in an accurately-modelled historic space. The development of this application will draw on the development experience of our technical partner, Biome Collective, who have significant experience of using mobile technologies to create immersive augmented reality experiences.We will work with two contrasting spaces and related repertories: St Cecilia's Hall and Rosslyn Chapel. Both sites benefit from pre-existing architectural research, and there are extensive records of historical concerts, which will enable us to recreate particular musical events using instruments from the Russell Collection, and a performance of a sung liturgical service by the renowned Binchois Consort in combination with our software.From an audience perspective we will explore how immersive media technologies might bring us closer to the original experience of early music, while from the perspective of performers and musicologists, it will allow us, for the first time, to explore systematically concepts of space and place within the context of historic performance.Through the process of creating this new technology, we will explore and create an outline taxonomy of the key psycho-physical cues that promote the sense of presence and immersion within a shared simulated performance space, describe how they combine to create convincing spaces, and investigate the methods that allow us to measure their efficacy.By hosting the Binchois Consort's performance in virtual space, we will also have the opportunity to explore a number of questions relating to performance that have the potential to serve as the basis for a much deeper follow-on investigation: To what extent does performing in a virtual space impact upon performance practice? What are the challenges and opportunities involved in bringing together musicians and audiences who are geographically remote to a co-located virtual space? How might immersive media technologies change how we curate physical and digital performance spaces? How might they be used to develop existing audiences and reach new ones, particularly those who are hard-to-reach?This final question is of direct commercial relevance, particularly to our partner organisation, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, who are committed to using technology as a tool to develop audiences and extend their existing outreach work, suggesting a possible avenue for commercialisation and further development. The RSNO have kindly agreed to assist us in working directly with their audiences for user testing.