Event description

Recap • Experience research - We celebrated OpenKIO Day with you

Get involved! There was a lot to experience at the OpenKIO Day on 3 levels and in the basement. The motto was not just to look and listen, but to join in! Our KIO team came up with some marvellous installations that brought our research projects to life.

Date

Thursday, 11. January 2024

Location

KreativInstitut.OWL, Bielefelderstr. 66a

KIO Was?

You were able to gain an insight into the KreativInstitut.OWL (affectionately known as KIO) and take a look behind the scenes. But what does the KIO actually do and what was there to see at the OpenKIO-Day? future-oriented research aims to combine expertise in digital media production, musicology and other creative disciplines. The Composition and Sound Design department deals with composing and analysing music. Research is conducted into new forms of music as well as their integration into virtual spaces. For this purpose, we have a unique infrastructure in the region in the form of the free-field room in the basement. Special, one metre long acoustically effective wedges are used to line the room in order to create the perfect environment for precise measurements of sound propagation. The measurement results make it possible to create a realistic listening experience in virtual rooms for perfect immersion.

The NRW Minister of Economic Affairs described the free-field space as >>acoustic space<<

The areas of digital humanities, music and media editions, focus on the preservation of cultural heritage by standardising the description of media editions and their archiving. The aim is to develop user-friendly interactive digital systems. With the walk-in ensemble "Inside Beethoven", a sound installation, a project has already been realised in close cooperation. Visitors enter a stage on which invisible musicians play and can approach each individual instrument in order to experience the musicians up close.

Music in your ears! Interactive sound installations, live music, Inside Beethoven, music informatics, music and media editing, composition and sound design... There was a lot to discover acoustically! The musicologists from the KIO team created impressive installations.

Photo credits: © TH OWL

Another research focus is on testing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) worlds, which can be used in various areas of our daily lives. Among other things, the effects of virtual environments on recipients are being researched. They often complain of nausea and discomfort. This can be reduced by skilfully creating virtual worlds. A high level of immersion, triggered by a close coordination of image and sound, is helpful here. To achieve this, KreativInstitut.OWL has high-quality recording and playback equipment at its disposal. Particularly noteworthy is the 3D scanner for people and objects, which is currently unique in NRW. This makes it possible to create a complete shell of the motifs with a single click using images from 124 simultaneously triggered cameras. With the help of programming, the generated shells can be animated and used in virtual worlds. They can also be used in other digital applications.