Binaural – The Other Stereo

Aesthetics and Technology of Auditory Mediated Spaces

Doctoral Dissertation (Doktor der Philosophie)
Martin Rumori, 2017
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz

Abstract

Binaural audio means making a difference – with respect to the listening experience, its cultural significance, the technology involved. Just by putting on headphones, binaural audio is capable of relocating us into an immersive aural surrounding as if it was reality. “The other stereo” is based on binaural sound signals that are related to the body. In unmediated listening situations, the outer hearing apparatus consisting of head, shoulders, and ears influences sound signals of our surrounding such that the brain can evaluate them for spatial hearing. When listening to binaural audio, the bodily preprocessing is bypassed and its role is taken over by similar qualities that are already present in the binaural signal. Employing this principle, real spaces may be recorded and reconstructed or immersive environments may be constructed from scratch. In virtual and augmented reality, binaural media dispositifs are widespread today. Unlike in the era of dummy head stereophony in the 1970s, cultural and technical preconditions are nowadays fulfilled: wearing headphones is widely accepted even as lifestyle gadgets, and powerful devices for mobile signal processing are ubiquitous. But what is actually different for the aesthetic experience of binaurally mediated spaces, for example, as opposed to loudspeaker-based spatial sound projection? What assumptions and ascriptions are connected to binaural technology as a subject matter of scholarly research? What do they mean for binaural audio in music and sound art? This thesis regards binaural technology in a three-fold combination of technical, humanities and artistic approaches. Significant characteristics are derived from the confrontation with loudspeaker stereophony and with concepts of spatialisation. Both unfold an idiosyncratic mediatising space to which formalisations in terms of communications engineering relate and which enables an artistic access. This mediatising space of binaural technology is based on above-mentioned intrinsic bodily relation, is reflected in terms of aesthetic experience and concepts of mimesis. Based on case studies, a discussion of binaural audio both in the artistic and the technical level is pursued, along with developing an understanding of artistic engineering.