VERTO
VERTO
Composing a Space
Immersive Electroacoustic Composition / Audio-Visual Installation
Format: 360° Ambisonics (HOA) 2nd order sound spatialization, AmbiX B-Format, Binaural Format
Duration: 28:48 min
VERTO is an immersive electroacoustic composition that weaves organic sound textures from extensive field recordings together with experimental percussion and piano improvisation, forming an electroacoustic composition further transformed through live musical processing. Performed and spatialized in Ambisonics 2nd-order B-format using the open-source Envelope4Live Max/MSP environment, the work constructs a multidimensional sonic field in which listening unfolds across direction, distance, and movement.
Sound and image operate as interdependent forces within a shared spatial environment and explores how perception is shaped within those complex, interdependent systems. Immersive visual projections emerge from digital 3D explorations utilizing scenes derived from our natural landscapes that are digitally transformed into unrecognizable states that resist recognition, emphasizing the tension between recognition and emergence. Familiar environments dissolve into abstract spatial textures, allowing perception to shift away from representation toward relational experience.
Time and transformation in VERTO are not linear but are experienced as physical, relational, and cyclical: each moment arises from interactions across spatial and temporal layers, continuously shifting and reorganizing itself, emphasizing simultaneity over linear progression. Change is not only enacted but also becomes both subject and medium of the work.
The audiovisual installation positions the audience within a dynamic multidimensional spatial system, where visual and sonic elements continuously influence one another. Textures interact across multiple spatial axes, creating a field in which every element – however small – affects the perception of the whole.
This immersive work explores the interconnectedness and complexity of collective systems. It highlights the importance of individual elements within a system and their effects on our neurological mechanisms. By translating one-dimensional sound into a three-dimensional depth and motion experience and reconfiguring familiar landscapes, the work foregrounds questions of orientation, agency, and interconnectedness: it challenges the idea that complexity can only be understood from a fixed singular viewpoint.
The central idea of this spatial listening experience is that understanding complexity requires considering actions and reactions from multiple directions simultaneously. Through this contemplative embodied encounter with these dynamics, the piece renders the otherwise invisible architecture of relational systems perceptible and experientially tangible, inviting audiences to experience complexity as something sensed, navigated, and continuously co-created.
VERTO can be encountered through multiple formats, including immersive installation, audiovisual performance, or an online version employing 360° binaural audio for headphone listening – extending the work’s exploration of multidimensional perception across different modes of experience.
