Synaespatia

Synaespatia is a live performative installation in which polyrhythmic drumming, synthesisers, and theremin generate and inhabit a navigable three-dimensional virtual environment in real time.

The work operates through the OpenCOVER VR rendering system within the COVISE software framework, developed by Dr Uwe Woessner at the High Performance Computing Laboratory (HLRS) of the University of Stuttgart. MIDI instrument data drives the generation of three-dimensional notation objects — custom-modelled forms that project through virtual space in response to the velocity, pitch, and duration of each note played. Live sound is simultaneously spatialised as a "Sound Tunnel" — a cylindrical virtual form whose surface renders real-time sound waveforms and fast Fourier transform frequency data as coloured gradient surfaces, data points, or vertices.

The work can be experienced through a head mounted display (HTC Vive) or inside a CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), and is networked to support simultaneous experience across geographically distant locations. Performers and audiences in different countries can inhabit the same virtual environment in real time.

Dr Ham introduces the concept of Synaespatia— borrowed from the condition of synaesthesia — to describe the spatial experience of music and sound in VR: the capacity to navigate through a musical performance as if it were a place, to pick up notational objects, to move through the architecture of sound.

EXHIBITION & PERFORMANCE HISTORY

Synaespatia has been performed and exhibited at:

Most Wanted: Music, Berlin (November 2025)
Australian Computer Music Conference, Melbourne (October 2024)
IEEE Symposium on the Internet of Sounds, Erlangen, Germany (September 2024)
Ars Electronica Garden Aotearoa, Wellington, New Zealand — invited exhibitor (June 2022)
Klingt Gut Sonic Arts Symposium, Hamburg (May 2021)
eCAADe Conference, Berlin — networked VR performance (September 2020)

New and Experimental Arts Lab, Geelong (February 2020)

TENOR conference Monash university, Melbourne (November, 2019)

Developed in collaboration with Uwe Woessner, High Performance Computing Laboratory, University of Stuttgart.

EXHIBITION & COMMISSION ENQUIRY

Synaespatia is available for exhibition in gallery, festival, academic, and institutional contexts. The work can be configured for HMD-based individual experience or CAVE-based group experience accommodating ten or more simultaneous participants. Technical requirements and performance formats are available on request.

Enquiries from galleries, festivals, and conference organisers are welcome.