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of investing in immersive technologies. But as well as helping to drive footfall for existing exhibit spaces, they can also hold the key to unlocking greater diversification. Recent developments at The Broad – a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles – are a case in point. “The Broad’s Summer Happenings series in the summers of 2017 and 2018 used multiple galleries as performance spaces by bringing in portable systems, some of which were presented in surround sound,” says Ellison. “This helps present contemporary artists in a new environment and grows the museum‘s audience. Similar efforts have been made by symphony orchestras in the US.” Moving forward, “systems that allow simple and compelling multi-channel control will become more common, and in many cases some of these elements may be mounted permanently within the
exhibit area. Reverberant acoustics are often a consideration for these spaces, but systems such as Meyer’s CAL series [of loudspeakers] can be used to direct audio coverage specifically towards listeners and not the reflective surfaces of the room. Alternatively, content can be presented that benefits from the reverberance of the gallery.” Dave Haydon, director and co-owner of Out Board – whose solutions include the TiMax 3D immersive spatial audio platform – also observes that he has witnessed some of the most exciting utilisations of immersive audio in museums of art. The Soundscapes exhibition, unveiled in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in 2015, invited musicians and sound artists to select a painting from the collection and compose a new piece of music or sound art to complement it. The site-specific exhibition encouraged visitors to experience these masterpieces in a new
ART AND AUDIO TiMax was used to create immersive audio spatialisation for Kew Gardens' The Hive and Culture Mile's Tunnel Visions: Array
way by ‘hearing’ the paintings and ‘seeing’ the sound. The TiMax platform was utilised as part of the immersive audio experience in multiple rooms, with Haydon noting that “sound [in the gallery spaces] really added something and helped to provide a through-line to the whole experience”. It also harkened back to earlier notions of art consumption, in particular the (once prevalent) idea that “art was intended to be viewed with music, for example, a chamber music ensemble performing”. NEXT-GENERATION EVENTS The success of events at The Broad, the National Gallery and other venues suggests that one of the most exciting
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