• Residencies
  • Tech projects
  • Producers
  • News & Events
  • Blog
  • About
    • Vertigo STARTS
    • Residencies program
    • STARTS Residencies Calls
    • Artistic Network
    • Consortium
    • Public records & deliverables

  • starts home
  • starts news
  • starts community
  • what is starts?
  • Sign In
  • Sign Up
  • starts home
  • starts news
  • starts community
  • what is starts?
  • Sign In /  Sign Up 
    • Residencies
    • Tech projects
    • Producers
    • News & Events
    • Blog
    • About
      • Vertigo STARTS
      • Residencies program
      • STARTS Residencies Calls
      • Artistic Network
      • Consortium
      • Public records & deliverables
    © 2022 Vertigo STARTS. All rights reserved.
    Privacy PolicyLegalContact
    Sensorium Audio Theatre
    Immersive, Interactive, Biofeedback-Data-Driven Environment for a New Public Musical Experience.
    Rafal Zapala
    +
    FutureLab
    Start of Residency
    End of Residency
    Artistic ProposalTech ProjectArtistOutcome
    FutureLab

    The Future School Laboratory is an experimental venture powered by Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center designed to study the interface between end users and state of art web and network services in the context of education and R’N’D projects on a national and global scale. The Future School Laboratory is where the team conducts research and development activities to test the limits of the state of the art technologies in the context of education and learning. Through curated, tailored for specific age groups, interdisciplinary adventures they strive to engage participants on the grounds of experience and experimentation. Every narrative is the fruit of collaboration between IT engineers, domain experts, artists and independent teaching professionals. The laboratory provides a test ground for experimental storytelling and teaching solutions is a venue for cooperation, initiative and educational events, houses advanced e-competence and soft-skills research facilities.

    Sensorium Audio Theatre

    The team intends to develop an environment for a new public aural experience. Entitled “Sensorium Audio Theatre”, the project stems from research on immersive educational environment to enhance students’ concentration. However, it goes much farther.
    The first model of the Sensorium was the effect of the author’s traineeship at Stanford University’s CCRMA Institute in 2014 (Palo Alto, 2014). Its first edition was developed on request of "The Castle" Culture Centre in Poznań (Poland). The sound installation filled the monumental, disused, empty space of the Clock Tower situated in the very heart of the city. Following the first Sensorium model, a bolder idea of a new, immersive environment of public experience of music germinated.
    The Sensorium essentially consist in transposition of the structure and dynamics of visitor’s emotional psychophysical reactions upon musical structures in a direct “live” experience. The objective is to create a musical environment which will let one hear their psycho-physical reactions, experience (through composed music) their changeability, as well as comprehend the possibility of exerting control over them.

    Rafal Zapala

    RAFAŁ ZAPAŁA
    composer, sound artist, improviser
    /piano, drums, electronics/
    post-doctorate degree (habilitation) – composition
    associate professor at Academy of Music in Poznań, Poland
    Zapała does not recognize any boundaries between music acquired through academic education, experience of the counterculture and collaboration with artists from any other fields.
    Graduated: composition (MA, PhD, habilitation) and conducting (MA).

    Artist-in-residence at Stanford University–CCRMA, Zamek Cultural Center, Świętokrzyska Philharmonic, ZK/U Berlin and others.
    Head of Kołorking Muzyczny, founder and head of an_ARCHE NewMusicFoundation and many ensembles (contemporary, improvised, electronic music).
    His concept of Live Electronic Preparation (LEP Technique) was published in Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio (Oxford University Press, 2014).
    Sound Designer of installation "Post-Apocalypsis" for The Polish National Exhibition at 13th Prague Quadrennial (awarded with Gold Medal in Sound Design cathegory).

    http://zapala.com.pl/
    See Profile

    The work in this “Sensorium Audio Theatre” residency was developed by Rafał Zapała, a composer of contemporary and experimental music (at the Telematics Workshop of the Academy of Music in Poznań) in collaboration with FutureLab powered by Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center. The project originated in research on the immersive educational environment to enhance students’ concentration.

    The idea of “Sensorium" stems from numerous artistic and scholarly traditions. Intended to reveal interdisciplinary character, it is imbued with the spirit of holistic and integral perception of human emotions, intellect and physiology. It is supposed to merge well-balanced artistic, scientific and technological, as well as psychological aspects. “Sensorium” is an intimate, one-person experience of "anti-mass" character. It essentially consists in the transposition of visitor’s emotional psychophysical reactions into musical structures in a direct “live” experience. The objective was to create a musical environment to let one hear their psycho-physical reactions, experience (through-composed music) their changeability, as well as comprehend the possibility of exerting control over them. One of the final results of the residency is a concept for educational workshops for young people entitled "SAMOUSPOKAJANIE" [Self-Appeasement], which will become a permanent entry on FutureLab’s offer. Exploring the immersive educational environment to enhance students’ concentration was from the start one of the aims of the team. Connecting art of musical composition with bio- and neurofeedback technology has great potential to benefit education, psychology and other areas.

    The collaboration undertaken under this residency helped Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center leverage its previous experience in ICT projects for new purposes and use the research equipment and techniques in new scenarios. The co-creation process and interdisciplinary meetings in FutureLab helped to redefine the priorities of the "PSNC Media Lab" and thus introduce its new name and new activity as an "PSNC Art&Science Lab". The results of this residence, together with the developed "SAMOUSPOKOJENIE" workshop, will become part of the permanent laboratory agenda in the second half of 2020.

    Interview with Rafal Zapala at CENTQUATRE-Paris, during the STARTS Residencies Days 2020

    Read the final report