Quasi-Spiritual Sonic Nexus
: Sacred Reverb, Aurality of Icons, and Colonization
Kubus, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany. 2025
Immersive Audiovisual Performance. 43.4ch audio, 1ch video
32-channel Impulse Responses of Korean and German Architectures
Custom light interaction system
This project investigates the unveiling of spatial information embedded within sound and examines the subtle phenomenological nuances that can affect the listeners, with particular focus on the spatiality of spaces conventionally regarded as sacred.
The research employs comparative analysis of soundscapes from Buddhist temples in Korea and their Christian counterparts in Germany, utilizing surround impulse response measurements and field recordings to capture the 'spatiality of sound.'
Through systematic examination of these acoustic environments, the study seeks to identify both divergences and convergences between these sacred sonic territories, subsequently employing these findings as compositional materials manifested through diverse signal generation methodologies: direct audio sampling, convolution reverb, filtering, oscillation, and other emergent approaches.
The acoustic documentation of each site employs a comprehensive array of recording technologies, including 32-channel Eigenmike, Ambisonic microphones, contact microphones, bone conduction speakers, etc. Concurrently, the visual topology of these spaces is captured through conventional and drone-based image, subsequently processed into three-dimensional models utilizing recent technologies.
For centuries, we've put vision on a pedestal, and this was no exception when it came to understanding space.
We trust our eyes above all else when it comes to making sense of the world around us. Walk into any room, and your eyes immediately map out where the funitures are.
But here's what's fascinating: sound tells us stories about space that are hard to capture with our eyes.
When you are in a cathedral, the way your footsteps echo can tell you whether the wall is composed of wood, stone, metal, or a compound of those.
Sound doesn't just give us information – it actuates the body. As propagating energy, it produces visceral and direct affects that bypass our thinking brain.
This is the starting point of my project. I focus especially on creating sacred atmospheres, or sound objects that serve as phenomenological bridges between material and transcendent realms. To explore the world of spaces and objects that create sonic sacredness, I decompose the reverb of spaces and vibrating objects using digital and analog technologies. Then it is sonically explored, and reassembled in new ways, along with the pathways of propagation and structure of sound visualized through light and video. Why do we feel something special from certain sonic gestures and spectra? In my opinion, this is a great time in history to explore such subject. I invite you to my performance to explore it with me.