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SOUND=SPACE – a way of life

Rolf Gehlhaar DLit

rolf.gehlhaar@gmail.com

keywords: musical creativity, learning, music facilitation, accessibility, therapeutic play, fun,interactivity and spontaneous social interaction.

Abstract

SOUND=SPACE (1985) is an interactive musical environment- designed and built by Rolf Gehlhaar -consisting of a large, empty space surveyed by an ultrasonic echo-location system. In this spaceseveral persons may create electronically generated music by simply entering and moving around.This paper describes the main functions and concepts of SOUND=SPACE and investigates the benefitsof its various applications of it – via informal creative play - to early music education and to thefacilitation of creative expression for the broad-spectrum disabled. Numerous applications during thepast 27 years of its existence – in workshops run both by the author and others - are described andexamined for their validity, in some cases referring to documentation of responses of participatingusers and carers. These findings form the foundation upon which recommendations for the continueddevelopment of its hardware, software and further research into the expansion of its applications aremade.

Imagine…the merriment of children jumping and twirling to the rhythm of sounds they are

creating; the delight of disabled persons tracing their steps in a narrative of spoken words and

sounds which they themselves have created; the happy serenity of elderly people, dancing in

the space, creating a music providing them with both aesthetic and physical stimuli; a

choreography of dancers which is echoed by sounds generated by the dancers, encouraging

them to and to find new gestures of expression.

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Background

During the past 27 years Rolf Gehlhaar - and many others – have supervised public

installations and run workshops with his invention SOUND=SPACE [1], an interactive musical

environment consisting of a large, empty space surveyed by an ultrasonic echolocation

(ranging) system. In this space several persons can simultaneously create music by simply

entering and moving around the space. Rapidly updated measurements of the positions

movement of persons in the space are sent to a computer that calculates their movement and

consequently triggers and/or generates music in real time. The activities surrounding

SOUND=SPACE have been documented in numerous publications [1] – [8]. Illustration 1.

shows the typical set-up of the ranging system: 8 ranging units looking inwards, 4 on each of

two contiguous sides of an empty square space.

SOUND = SPACE resulted from an idea that the author had in 1983, which envisioned

the creation of a non-deterministic piece of electronic music that ‘lived’ in a computer program

and was ‘performed’ by its audience. People with no previous experience or musical expertise

could bring this music to life in the space. The audience becomes an active participant in the

creative process. SOUND=SPACE both questions – and perhaps enhances - the standard role

and the status quo of the musician and composer.

Illustration 1. The interactive space of SOUND=SPACE, ca 8m x 8m (courtesy of A.P. Almeida)

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To sum up, my original objectives were that the audience become the performers, that

by engaging with the creative process of the music they take ownership of it, that they bring to

life my algorithmic ‘compositions’, manipulating sounds as if they were physical objects,

thereby exploring the nature of sound and finding music in it. In order to achieve these aims, I

had not only to design the ultrasonic echolocation ranging system but also to meet certain

software design requirements.

Musical Topologies

In order to structure the application software I needed first to develop some concepts

for interaction as applicable to music, i.e. the affordances that would encourage users to

interact. This led to my development of the concept of musical topologies, the software that

would allow users to create and influence the sounds they heard. I developed three different

types: static, dynamic and hybrid.

In the static topology, sounds - their pitch, duration and timbres - are mapped in the

two-dimensional space, i.e. distributed over the horizontal space such that the presence of a

person at a specific location will trigger a specific sound. In the dynamic topology, sequences

of changes in position of the users are measured (in several areas of the space). These

measurements are integrated into activity values: slow or small movements = low activity

value, fast or large movements = high activity value. These values, updated approximately 3

times/sec, then influence various parameters of a compositional algorithm that generates

evolving pitch, timbral, harmonic and rhythmic structures. The hybrid topology combines

both modes of the above topologies, responding both to the measurement of the positions of

the users and how fast they change them. In the first versions of SOUND=SPACE (1985-88)

the sounds were generated by a digital signal processor. This source was very good for

exploring physical acoustic characteristics. Illustration 2. shows a typical set of four different

topologies from this period, each with its simple explanations of the affordances. These were

the ones used for the installations in the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Science &

Technology, both in Paris, and in Lisbon 1986. In this version, the sounds were produced by a

proprietary 128-channel digital signal processor. The available manipulations of the sounds

were primarily ‘electro-acoustical’ – based upon phase shifting of large numbers of waveforms

- rather than pitch-durational, mainly because real-time timbral changes were difficult to

achieve. In these installations and workshops the visitors could also choose the current

topology and the overall loudness of the sounds (see 11. in the topology below) . However, I

removed these functions in later versions because people, often unintentionally ‘misused’

them. That is to say, that changing program required that the current program (and sounds) be

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stopped and a new one loaded. As computers were still quite slow in those days, this process

took about 15 seconds and was of course, silent. Many times visitors would try to change the

program so often that the system was silent for a long time. The other function, loudness also

created problems in that visitors would often cause the loudness to be so low, that there also

would be practically no sound.

In the early installations the explanations and the graphics as indicated in the

topologies were made available to the visitors, through handouts and graphics on the floor in

the space. These I gradually simplified because many visitors would fixate on the graphics on

the floor, mistakenly thinking that the lines were the sensors and consequently lose the

freedom to explore the space.

For the first installation, in the Centre Pompidou, I had provided a ‘visitor counter’, an

infrared gate, counting the people entering and leaving the space. The main reason behind this

was that I knew that if there were more than about 20 people in the 36m2 space, some of the

ranging units would be blinded by people standing directly in front of them This would

interfere with the functioning of the system. So I tried to limit the number of visitors to 20,

placing a sign at the entrance ‘please wait’ when this number had been reached. It did not work

very well; people went in anyway. So I eliminated that too.

Illustration 2: Early topologies

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In later versions (1988- 1996) 16 channels of FM synthesis were employed. This

provided a much greater freedom and control over the pitch, duration and timbres of the

sounds as well as the possibility of working with sounds that had a slightly more familiar,

‘instrumental’ quality. As Illustration 3. below demonstrates, the standard number of

topologies has been increased to five and their characterisation employs more familiar terms.

Illustration 3: Later topologies

More recent versions (1996 – present) employ a hardware or software sampler and an

extension of the sound-mapping software to include a commercially available sound sequencer

(first MAX/MSP and later AbletonLive). These provides the greatest flexibility as makes it

easier to sample sounds made by the users and to rapidly integrate them into the topologies.

The extension of the software was also important because it simplifies the creation of

topologies and allows even only slightly computer literate users to create, record and perform

their own narratives, with or without additional sound effects or musical sounds. This aspect

allows the users to take complete ownership of their creation, a capability frequently exploited

for multiple workshops in which a group of participants create their own written narrative,

record the spoken words, complement these with sounds and sound effects, and then

‘choreograph’ their movements in order to ‘perform’ the narrative.

Early Travelling Installations

The first installations in which ad hoc workshops with disabled children were carried

out took place in Lisbon at the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1986. This resoundingly positive

experience (many of the visitors simply exploded with joy) soon made me decide to continue

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developing the system, to make it more compact and to travel with it, and, most importantly,

to concentrate – but not exclusively - on working with the disabled.

Although people generally loved SOUND=SPACE and the number of visitors to its first

installation in Les Immateriaux at the Centre Pompidou 1985 had been astounding, I felt that

the workshops with the disabled children were more significant. I felt they not only enjoyed the

experience but they also needed it. I also wanted to explore alternative applications such as

music and technology education for children and the broad spectrum disabled, providing

access to a previously denied expressive medium. After two years of redeveloping the software,

the standard set of topologies were as in Illustration 4. below, explaining the functions and

also indicating also the graphics for spatial orientation that were laid out on the floor.

Illustration 4. Topologies from 1996

In the past (and present) SOUND=SPACE has found numerous applications: as a

creative environment for music and movement workshops with musicians, children, the

disabled; as a musical environment for dancers, creating in real time the music to which they

are moving; as a virtual instrument for performers, controlling a variable host of electronic

musical instruments and ancillary equipment (e.g. light, real-time computer-generated

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images, QT video, etc); as a teaching resource for musicianship skills (ear training),

composition, performance and computer music programming; as a tool for the interactive

musical, visual, and or textual animation of public exhibits.

General Observations

After overcoming initial inhibitions of ‘making a spectacle’ of themselves, users generally find

controlling and exploring the space an intensely pleasurable experience. This leads me to

conjecture that the experience speaks to the ‘aesthetic’ brain, our seemingly evolutionary

predisposition for the mind to abstract sensory experiences. Being an agent in the space by

resting or moving in it immaterialises the body and yet leaves a personal trace. Furthermore, a

process of learning through action occurs in which the users take ownership of what is

happening because they are ‘making’ it, thus engaging in a process of anti-consumerism-

infantilism: essentially, people are making these things, ‘with their hands’.

The software is highly accessible: users can structure and develop own versions,

thereby more fully able to participate in the creative process (as opposed to most computer

games and telephones, where the software is proprietary and highly guarded and). The

experience certainly speaks to the social brain: users almost always invite other to share it with

them. It thus also conforms and reinforces to a paradigm of music: the only ‘discussion’ in

which everyone can participate - talk - at the same time). After a certain amount of experience

in the space, after users have loosened up a little, a considerable amount of social cooperation

usually begins to evolve, users define and attempt to achieve common goals, be their

inspiration ‘choreographic’ or aimed at specific musical result, or both.

Propositions

Fundamentally, SOUND=SPACE is a social, creative learning environment, an

exploratory experience that involves the creation or discovery of both ‘group’ and personal

narratives. To anyone in the space for a even just a short time, it quickly becomes obvious that

a single person cannot exploit all the affordances; in fact, a single person quickly begins to feel

quite inadequate for it. Thus, it encourages the creation of and participation in ‘communities of

place’.

More profoundly, because a user may easily establish a dialogue of ‘cause-effect’, the

experience precipitates a confrontation with the self and its musical thoughts in a quasi-

linguistic engagement with a significant other.

Further more, because the space invites exploration, it encourages listening to sound,

remembering sounds, their pitch, colour, articulation, locations, etc., causing the user to create

a mind-map of the space. Because the sounds are experienced ‘raw’ - not already encapsulated

in already ‘familiar’ music – this leads directly to an informal process of ‘discovery’ of sound:

its dramatic possibilities, its immateriality and the poetry arising from its juxtapositions.

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Supportive Techniques: structure of workshops

There are numerous techniques that may be applied in workshops in order to support

the experience of exploration and discovery. These may be to allow the first-time user to

explore the space freely, without explanation; to encourage the understanding the concept of

sound topologies through simple questions or tasks; to suggest searching for specific sound

objects; to finding specific sound objects and relating them sequentially in time, etc. Once a

basic understanding has evolved, then the users begin to create musical meaning through own

actions by discovering ad hoc relationships, following a choreography, generating specific

rhythms, practicing discrimination between pitches and harmonies, becoming involved in a

‘dialogue’ with others and, extrapolating intentions from observations.

Summary

In the space, one can do nothing wrong, only better. The structure of the topologies is

such that even the more or less random or chaotic movement by a group of people in the space

is transformed into a musical flow that sounds elegant, planned and structured. The greater

the variety of movement in the 'exploration' of the space is, the greater the differentiation and

diversity of the music will be. Understanding how the space functions is an advantage in

'playing' it well, but only an advantage, not a requirement. Furthermore, participation consists

not only in being in the space - occasionally alone, but generally with others - but also in sitting

out occasionally and listening and watching others. SOUND=SPACE is essentially a social

environment. Its interactivity is not limited to the interaction between person and 'instrument'

but includes, perhaps more importantly, the interaction between person and person while

'playing' in the environment.

Fundamentally, SOUND=SPACE is about exploration and empowerment. Especially

for children and those with developmental/emotional problems, it is about finding focus, and

following ideas and sensations – controlling the sensations – at the individual’s own rate.

SOUND=SPACE gives instant feedback from their own movement reflected in sounds. Each

group of children can experience this in their own way, learning they can create their own

patterns, compose their own tempo, dynamics, communicate with SOUND=SPACE through

their movement of the moment. Language capability is not an issue.

Testimonials

In 1989 the author carried out an extensive series of workshops at The University of

New England, NSW, Australia. The participants were elementary school children as well as

high school students and numerous special needs groups including autistic children. Most of

the workshops were single sessions generally lasting approximately 1.5 hrs, with participants

from various local special schools, day centres, usually in groups of 4-15 persons, or simply

parents with their children. Depending upon the abilities and communication skills of the

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participants, various techniques - usually demonstration, rarely explanation - were employed

to introduce them briefly to the SPACE. After this, the remainder of the workshop was

dedicated to the free exploration of the creative possibilities, the participants acting either

individually or simultaneously in small groups. The primary aims of these workshops were to

focus upon the enjoyment of this experience, the empowering nature of the musical creative

experience made available by SOUND=SPACE and the social interaction among the

participants arising as a result. Although, due to the brevity of the sessions, very little didactic

work - either musical or movement - could be attempted, it seems these sessions did not pass

entirely without profound effects, as testified by one of the observers, Prof. Rosalind Halton

[2].

I remember two particular sessions. One was a group of over 20 children, ranging from

quadriplegic, cerebral palsy, to severely autistic. The other was a group from a school of special

needs children. During the sessions there was fun, constant exchanges between carers and

children, and always with Rolf.

The aftermath was often a very emotional time – for me, for the carers. One said that

there were very few ways in which carers and children could relax and enjoy themselves

together. This novel experience was one way that brought them together.

Each participant could feel individually celebrated during SOUND=SPACE. Rolf had

put one of my harpsichord soundtracks and I found I could move it in tempo and pitch by

rocking back and forwards. I could change the pitch by moving different distances.

This type of learning I saw reflected on the face of every participant at one time or other

– a moment of realising that it was their own movements organising the sounds and intensity

that they heard.

This was not an experience in the field of evidence-based knowledge. No measurements

were taken of brain activity – the idea of any intervention that would be an invasion of the

child’s space would be in direct contradiction to the aims of SOUND=SPACE. Evidence was thus

entirely based on the reports of parents and carers – a group very experienced in observing

small changes in the behaviour of the children. One reported that her young son talked more

clearly and coherently than normal after every one his Sound=Space experiences. Whether it

was stimulus, or a feeling of emotional ease, SOUND=SPACE contributed something that went

beyond clinical treatment and seemed to open channels.

Some further remarks made by other observers, carers and parents of some of the

participating autistics are developmentally challenged children [2]. I believe these need little

amplification or commentary.

"After [an] initial reluctance to participate, my son, who is normally quite aloof from

other children, tried to initiate contact with an unknown peer, saying he wanted to be friends.

He was able to use the child's name without having been told it, i.e. picking it up from incidental

conversation.

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"He also actively sought out his sister to play, using full sentences. He also was able to

respond to a request to dance like a butterfly and horse. His communication continued for

some hours after, to be greater in quantity and clarity. In all, a remarkable experience.

"To have access to such an avenue is wonderful. The experience was enriching. It

confirmed much of the research I had done into music therapy. Best of all, it helped to open

another window of opportunity for my son to experience the world. "

A second visitor, a three-year old boy with his mother, was similarly 'energised' by his

experience in the space, although it had a tentative beginning:

"[At first he was] crying and became distressed when a high-pitched percussion

program was used (sound sensitivity). This stopped immediately when the program was

changed to lower sounds. [He started] smiling, saying 'Music'; [he] became very calm after 1/2

hour of moving around and then became very animated when he realised his movements were

resulting in the music."

The above two instances are representative of the individual experiences and reactions

of visitors to the space. The social nature of participating in activities in the space - it is not a

'game' that is played by one person alone - also contributes importantly to the overall

experience. In many instances, it is an observation (or a 'sensing') of a social situation or

activity which catalyses a new individual awareness and activity. During a session that

included autistic children as well as several others (mostly siblings), an independent

participant and observer noted:

"As a result of L and me twirling, S and B developed a lot of paired dancing and

spinning, especially towards the end of the session. A began to look straight at me and invite me

to do things with him towards the end. His face was animated and he was moving very

confidently by the end."

A. is the little boy mentioned above who was crying when he first arrived. In another

session with six children, three parents and several observers participating, this same

observer/participant noted:

"A, who wears very thick glasses (and is probably a case for Early Intervention) was very

shy and doesn't talk throughout. At first everyone is very protective of A and when I come in, I

wonder if she is almost blind because M leads her everywhere by the hand. Then her mother

suggests that she have a go on her own. When this happens, she follows the other two little girls

who are very well co-ordinated. They run round the room like bumblebees.”

Conclusions

During the many years that I have run these extended types of workshops, I have

personally had the most rewarding experiences ever while working with SOUND=SPACE. I

have frequently witnessed personal development, often heard great, uninhibited squeals of joy

at a newly-found skill and have many times been deeply touched. Each series leads me to new

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ideas for the next, as well as leaves a trace in my private compositional thinking. At the end

of the last session I always ask the participants if they would like to come to another workshop;

the answer is always "When, where?"

References

[1] Gehlhaar, R. SOUND=SPACE Contemporary Music Review, Harwood Academic Publishers,Vol.6,1992

[2] www.gehlhaar.org SOUND=SPACE and WORDS/SOUND=SPACE workshops held at UNE,Australia, 1989

[3] R.Sutherland : New Perspectives in Music, Sun Tavern Fields, London 1994

[4] Sparacino, Davenport and Pentland: Media in performance: Interactive space for dance, theatre, circus, and museum exhibits IBM Systems Journal, Vol 39, Nos3&4, 2000

[5] Gehlhaar, R., Girão, L. M., Rodrigues, P. M., Almeida, A. P., 2008. Musical Topologies inSound=Space. In 28th ISME World Conference. Bologna, Italy, (CD-ROM / ISBN 9780980456028)

[6] Almeida, A. P., Girão, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. and Rodrigues, P. SOUND=SPACE Update at Casa da Música, in Proceedings of 2nd European Conference on Development Psychology of Music Perception (Roehampton, September 2008), Roehampton University, 80-84.

[7] Almeida, A. P., Girão, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. Rodrigues, P., Neto, P. and Mónica, M. SOUND=SPACE OPERA, in Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Disability Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies with ArtAbilitation (Maia, September 2008), ICDVRAT/University of Reading, 347-354.

[8] Almeida, A. P., Girão, L. M., Gehlhaar, R. Rodrigues, P. and Rodrigues, H. SOUND=SPACE: Music Perception in Action, in Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Multimedia and Information and Communication Technologies in Education (Porto, April 2009), Formatex, 1199-1203. Available at Available at http://www.formatex.org/micte2009/volume2.htm.