Julian Kämper 
5 Minuten
Since 2018, we have been exploring 3D audio techniques and their artistic potential in the arts in an artistic-research manner. We bring together our stage performances, research processes, scientific research statuses, and discourses as well as artistic showcase projects, and question the aesthetic works in terms of how they apply spatial-acoustic phenomena and 3D audio technologies. We are accompanied by the central question of how acoustic space is used as a narrative parameter, i.e. how it forms its dramaturgical component within an artistic work beyond the effect of "immersion".
The concept of dramaturgy thus plays a central role in our practice-oriented and at the same time systematic search for the artistic potential of 3D audio processes. The ambitious - and utopian? - the goal of our ongoing research journey: nothing less than a universal theory of 3D audio with which we can contribute to the academic discourse.
What we need: a 3D listening culture
We define our theory of 3D audio as "universal" in two respects:
Firstly, we are not limiting ourselves to one art form. We explore all art forms with auditory dimensions - regardless of whether the acoustic plays a central (e.g. music, radio play) or a subordinate (e.g. dance theater) role. This interdisciplinary approach results from the respective backgrounds that we bring to the project as theater and filmmakers, multimedia artists, music and art scholars, dramaturges, and audio engineers.
Secondly, we work on production, design, and reception issues in equal parts and interdependently. For example, technical knowledge is a prerequisite for the dramaturgically consistent application of spatial sound techniques. At the same time, it is necessary to always keep the recipient's perspective in mind: Not only to be able to produce for a specific playback medium (e.g. headphones, Dolby Atmos, soundbar) but also to take the listener by the hand - because there is no 3D listening culture that producers and consumers can use as a guide!
The basic principle: everything for two ears
The conceptual development of our work is based on the following stage situation: In the middle of the stage action, there is a "live microphone", i.e. a person (marked in red, for example) wearing a binaural microphone (dpa 4560) in their ears. What is miked with it is transmitted in real time to the (wireless) headphones with which the audience is equipped for the performance.
We realized a 3D headphone concert for the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in 2022. We recently released a musical headphone film in collaboration with Ensemble Musikfabrik. Please wear headphones for both videos!
3D soundscapes: staged for two ears
In our work, we focus on headphones for several reasons. Headphones are now widely used as the standard of reception for auditory media content so that the experience of 3D audio content is low-threshold and suitable for the masses (in contrast to the exclusivity of a specific sound dome). More importantly, however, we want to create a 3D soundscape that surrounds the listener as precisely as possible. Because we see the three-dimensional, audible space as the decisive parameter for our narratives - be they concrete or abstract - we assign a specific location to each sound (instrument, body, movement, speech, etc.); each sound stands in a sound-dramaturgically argued spatial relationship to the listening person. This precision can only be achieved if we know the audience's sweet spot at all times. So far, we have not given our listeners the freedom to move or behave individually to the sounds within loudspeaker systems or via head tracking.
We are continuously developing our sound-dramaturgical strategies for storytelling in space. In the process, we create laboratory-like videos in which we explain one aspect of sound phenomenology at a time. These "shorts" serve as a toolbox for our work on artistic projects, while at the same time, they are aimed at a curious audience that has yet to "learn" how to listen critically to 3D audio.
The idea of 3D sound theater
We want to make theater for two ears! We want to convey material, content,, and stories via a 3D soundscape that has been precisely developed in terms of sound dramaturgy. Movement, language, body, and visuals are designed under the 3D-acoustic premises. This entails a reorganization of the usual theatrical means and thus new narrative possibilities.
The idea of an immersive 3D sound theater for audiences with headphones leads to a hybrid theater format: the analog means of theater, which relies on physical presence and experience as well as collective experience, are combined with the latest production and reception aesthetics of digital, mass-compatible and pop-cultural media, which today are mainly consumed via headphones - especially by young people.
This idea of a a 3D sound theater for a head-hearing audience opens up, a completely new narrative, dramaturgical, and reception-related scope.
Firstly, it is a 3D sound theater for infinitely times one hearing person. Although the audience is physically in a collective process of perception, the entire stage action is always staged for two ears - i.e. seemingly individualized.
Secondly, the spatial distance between the stage and the auditorium is eliminated through the medium of headphones, because the audience is acoustically on stage and can be whispered to, for example - creating a new intimacy, immersion to, and communication through sound. Even the smallest body noises and articulatory nuances that go unnoticed on the big stage suddenly gain artistic relevance.
Thirdly, it is necessary to break with the practical conventions of the stage set-up to create a 3D auditory landscape for the "living microphones". In other words, the audience is not addressed by an anonymized audience sitting in a darkened auditorium, but by a single listening person around whom the stage actors move according to staging and choreographic requirements.
Fourthly, such a 3D sound theater for headphone audiences works both in the theater space and in the digital space. Not only does the live experience stand out from the conventional theater dispositive, but the reception via digital channels (such as media libraries, streams, etc.) also presents itself as an immersive theater experience - and this without any technical hurdles, since digital offerings are usually consumed via laptops, tablets and smartphones in combination with headphones anyway.
In recent years, we have designed our vision of a 3D sound theater for audiences with headphones and tested it with performers in various experimental setups. In 2025, we will realize two large-scale music theatre productions - and these experiences will then flow back into our theory development...
Julian Kämper
SOUNDDRAMATURGIEN is a long-term project by Felix Kruis (multimedia artist, film and theater maker, art historian), Julian Kämper (musicologist, dramaturge, author), and Dominik Breinlinger (audio engineer, sound director). As an artistic collective from Munich, they design performative and media concepts for head-listening audiences, and as lecturers, they discuss dramaturgical and narrative strategies in the use of 3D audio at colleges, universities, and symposia.
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