Music as artificial environment: Spatial, embodied multimodal experience

Abstract

This chapter is a speculative exploration of the near-future possibilities of spatial music. Technologically, we can control many hundreds of loudspeakers and, conceivably, many thousands. What would we do with them? Here, music is considered as a particular example of arti cial information environments, with consequences for the perception of space. Arti cial information environments are those environments in which information transactions are governed by design. The distinction is clear in comparison with natural environments, but a ner distinction can be drawn between man-made environments (such as buildings), where some information transactions are haphazard, and information environments whose main purpose is to display information.