Sound Space

Lobe x New Forms Festival

Performance Works Theatre | December 14-18 2022

 
 

In December 2022 Lobe x New Forms Festival presented Sound Space at Performance Works Theatre in Vancouver. It was a densely programmed week of live music, facilitated listening, sound installations, and workshops all facilitated by a large-scale omni-directional speaker array assembled by Lobe Studio, consisting of 40 speakers powered by 4DSOUND technology.


We saw live performances, conversations, and listening experiences facilitated by award-winning and emerging local artists alike, featuring Inuk artist Tiffany Ayalik, Vancouverite sound sculptor Loscil, Montréal-based guest Ramzi, Brooklyn-based sound bath practitioner A Space for Sound, selections from the MONOM Catalogue, and much more. 


Sound Space presented some of the incredible work that has been produced in and around Lobe alongside, and on the same 4DSOUND system, as the work of artists whose practices consider modes of environmental listening. It underscored emergent themes like bioacoustics, storytelling, augmented reality, interspecies exchanges, locality, the exploration of inner-space, and the exploration of outer space. And it contextualized new spatial listening practices with local lineages and octophonic pieces that precede the atomized, many-channeled environments produced by 4DSOUND. 

 

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Reflecting on Sound Space, we still can’t extend our gratitude enough to the artists, technicians, and audience members who joined us for those 5 days in December. It was an incredibly high point to end the year on for us, and an inspiring intersection of the various forms of artistry, thoughtfulness, and ways of listening that are supported by spatial sound technology.

Since Lobe opened in 2020, we have seen works in spatial sound speculate about forms of receptivity, and suggest new ways of tracking our embeddedness within our environment. Sound Space invited many people together to share in this purpose, and it was thrilling for us to gather, make ourselves comfortable, and adapt as listeners, as we experienced the myriad of environments offered to us by the artists and facilitators involved.

Thank you to New Forms Festival for inviting us to partner with you this year, and thank you to Steve Louie, Claine Lamb, and Damien Gillis who documented the event so beautifully for us. We’re happy to share these images and videos with you, and will be looking forward to the next time we can all meet, and go deep. 


X Lobe Team

 

Photo Credit: Steve Louie