The French IRCAM Research Centre and partners Amadeus, Holophonix and Vrtuoz are exploring a new concept for the production and dissemination of live performances – ‘a continuum between real and virtual stages, artists and spectators, viewers, and listeners – and between French technological innovation and cultural production’.
An ambitious €1.2m research project that is set to run until Q4 2025, the Continuum research programme aims to develop a comprehensive production chain, from capture to playback, to create and transmit augmented spatial content to spectators in both a range of shared spaces (theatres, cinemas, public or private spaces) and in individual listening situations in virtual reality or binaural rendering with headphones.
‘With more than 40 years’ experience in research on sound spatialisation, the Continuum project is made possible through the support of the France 2030 programme, which offers IRCAM the opportunity to set a new standard in terms of the quality and use of immersive sound rendering for live performances; and an opportunity to experiment with it in the context of large-scale artistic productions,’ says Hugues Vinet, Director of Innovation & Research Means at IRCAM.
‘The participation of the companies, Amadeus and Vrtuoz, contributes to their democratisation for theatrical broadcasting and for individual experiences based on virtual reality devices.’
‘This project is an extension and reinforcement of our historical partnership with IRCAM,’ says Gaëtan Byk, CEO at Amadeus and founder of Holophonix.
‘We have been working for a long time to design and make available technological tools, mainly intended for creative artists and participants in the performing arts, to compose space, to create immersive experiences, and to maximise the coherence between sound and visual images in performance venues, to improve the localisation of musicians, actors, and singers on stage, and to create virtual acoustic spaces, among other concepts.’
Many technological innovations are being develped, including a software solution for modelling room acoustic impulse response at high resolution, using Ambisonics microphones, a software solution to convert higher-order Ambisonics signals to binaural, a hybrid reverb engine, combining convolution reverb based on 3D Ambisonics impulse responses and synthetic reverb structure to create artificial late reverberation, an active (regenerative) acoustic enhancement system to expand the acoustical properties of performing arts venues, a graphical sequencer for digital art creation and a new range of loudspeakers adapted to spatial sound reinforcement based on linear arrays.
All of the software innovations will be available in the Holophonix environment.
The Continuum technological advances will also be tested and presented to the public through a series of artistic productions. This includes the recreation of a virtual acoustic space for the Royaumont Cistercian Abbey – which was destroyed during the French Revolution – in the open air, as part of a commissioned installation by composer and organist Francesco Filidei. Most of these artistic productions will be available by remote access using virtual reality through the Vrtuoz platform.
‘Vrtuoz has the ambition of making immersive content more attractive by focusing on quality and accessibility,’ says Vrtuoz President, Gildas Dussauze. ‘The platform works by integrating technologies developed by excellent partners and focuses on curating content and designing a user path that is as simple and intuitive as possible. The Continuum project, in collaboration with IRCAM and Amadeus, will allow our future users, gathered remotely for an event, to share an unparalleled sound experience in terms of dynamism and spatialisation.’
