Listening Mirrors 1.0 (sound art installation & instrument)

Listening Mirrors #01 is a sound art installation and musical instrument that warps and blurs the boundaries between real and designed realities, opening up a new space for participants to explore these two worlds as one. It challenges existing cultural conditioning of perception with new sonic networking systems. It promotes shared modes of musical expression for musicians and non-musicians alike. The instrument, in its construction and interaction design, investigates ways in which collective sonic expression can be made possible using Audio Augmented Reality technology (AAR) and acoustic mirrors, whilst exploring how such environments promote collaborative sonic expression. Listening Mirrors is composed of a virtual acoustic mirror (an IOS app built with OpenFrameworks, LibPD with bone-conduction headphones)and a parabolic acoustic mirror (built from aluminium metal sheets, piano wires and 3D printed joints, and brought under tension with double bass strings, bending each piano wire and aluminium sheet to form its parabolic shape), all networked and excited by transducers that stream sound from the real and virtual sonic environments