The creative power of d&b Soundscape has been employed in Paris to make Nature Manifesto possible, a unique and immersive sound installation by the internationally renowned artist Björk.
In a fusion of art and ecological activism, the unmistakable voice of Björk recited her manifesto on the future of nature, accompanied by the cries of animals in danger of extinction and others already extinct, along with spectacular visual effects partly created with artificial intelligence tools.
Using the creative possibilities of d&b Soundscape, Nature Manifesto has been a haunting and immersive presentation that has employed the latest technologies to anticipate the future of a natural world in crisis.
The presentation has been created by Björk in collaboration with the artist Aleph Molinari (curator of the event and co-author of the manifesto) and IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) to draw attention to the current collapse of Earth’s biodiversity. It was designed exclusively for its presentation at the Centre Pompidou, the multi-level and multicultural Parisian center for arts and letters.
In its aim to create an absorbing sound experience for the audience, the work has fully utilized the immersive audio system d&b Soundscape, with the technical support of Southby Productions, a London-based specialist in d&b Soundscape technology.
Björk collaborated with the artist Robin Meier Wiratunga to create the complex sound material, with her “orchestra” composed of animal voices. One of the greatest challenges faced by Southby’s sound team, comprised of Digby Shaw and Joel Gosling, was to make the immersive auditory experience as inclusive as possible, not only for a static audience inside the Centre Pompidou but also for those moving along the iconic exterior tube of the building’s caterpillar-shaped escalator.
When our composition work was quite advanced, the question was how to present it in a space as unique as the caterpillar. Spatialization quickly became the central element of this creative and mixing process, comments Meier Wiratunga.
With so many creative and technological participants, a series of ideas and tools were involved, including IRCAM’s SPAT software (a real-time spatial audio processor). “d&b Soundscape is perfect for integrating all these different trajectories, even disparate technologies such as SPAT, and adapting them from the studio environment to the Pompidou”, explains Shaw. “It exists to create unique listening environments for the audience, even if they are moving through the six floors of a Parisian building”.
A single DS100 signal engine provided the necessary processing for the d&b Soundscape system, which played through 70 point-source speakers from d&b’s compact E series. A ring of six E8 speakers, plus an ultra-compact B8 subwoofer, served each level of the Centre Pompidou, while each corresponding section of the escalator was covered by eight E5 speakers. The entire system was powered by 20 5D amplifiers.
“It was a unique challenge”, says Shaw. “Wayne Powell, global artist relations manager at d&b, was instrumental in making the project a reality, as was Robin Vieville and the entire Centre Pompidou team, who went above and beyond to help us”.
d&b Soundscape is a technology that truly complements what we have developed here at IRCAM. We are used to employing point-source sound, but Soundscape offers us a different way to work with space, by moving the sources within it, adds Meier Wiratunga.
Presented as part of the Biodiversity Forum: Which culture for which future? (What culture for what future?) This project successfully combined the most advanced artistic creativity and presentation technologies.
As the curator of the Centre Pompidou, Chloé Siganos, says: “Current technology is not just a tool; it serves creativity, and I find it fantastic that art and technology come together in the service of storytelling. This is where the future of live performance lies”.
