Digital Unrealities

This exposition explores the making of the multi-channel sound installation “digital unrealities, study I”. It goes through the process of constructing an unreal environment by sonic means, particularly through the use of contemporary digital tools. Because sound is heavily dependent on its propagation through a physical space, the idea of unreal considers reverberation and spatialization as the main subjects of interest. Consequently, reverb became the main tool to explore the subject in practice. Due to the multidisciplinarity of the project, the subject had different approaches: from exploring the understandability of a sound according to its spatialization; to creating the sound material using reverb artifacts; as approaching spatialization through ambisonic strategies; and to processing sound sources through convolution reverb and cross-synthesis towards abstraction. In the end, the research and practice evolved analogously; concluding that the idea of sound digitality is only part of a process, not of an experience, because sound occurs only when propagated. Nevertheless, the composition is a proposal of “reduced listening” in a digital media context.