Philip Liu

 Re-flex-ion investigates the acoustic signature of space as compositional matter, deploying a dome-shaped multichannel audio system, interactive light emitter-detector system, and videographic projection to render spatialized listening as an aesthetic encounter.
Across diverse cultural geographies—from Asian to European sonic traditions—the resonant properties of built environments and material objects have long structured auditory epistemologies: shaping perceived distance, mediating knowledge transmission, and structuring musical creation and communal exchange.

 

Liu regards traditional architecture's function as tuned acoustic instruments, tuned across centuries through iterative calibration at scales vastly exceeding conventional spatiotemporal scales.

He inverts scalar conventions, positioning rooms and enclosures as chordal generators and pattern generators—while small-scale sounding objects serve as signal processors or acoustic effects. This reversal leverages three technical methodologies: surround impulse response capture, acoustical modeling, and physical modeling synthesis.
The work orchestrates over a hundred spatial configurations of four rooms/spaces, each yielding distinct spectral identities. Liu treats both the visual morphology and acoustic behavior of these spaces as plastic material. Reciprocally, miniaturized objects become chambers, functioning as effect processors.

Each audiovisual element manifests an intrinsic shape-sound coherence. Through aural perception—distinct from vision—the notion of time transforms into space, and Liu manipulates the temporal envelope of spatial listening, re-temporalizing the objects and inscribing new semantic layers onto their sonic ontology.
 

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