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amfi's design-driven fashion label

reviving the narrative of fashion culture

Team

Kimberly Waldbillig

Marketing & Communication

University of Utrecht
MA New Media and Digital culture


Dion Gavriilidis

Production Manager
University of Amsterdam
BA New Media and Digital culture


Myrthe de Smit

Creative Director
VU University Amsterdam
MA Design Cultures


Marissa Memelink

Reproduction manager

University of Amsterdam
BA New Media and Digital culture


Commissioner:

Description

S o u n d _ a r t _ m e e t s _ f a s h i o n

 

wfs-header-1 - Version 2

Watching the show unfold before our eyes was nothing like hearing it. Finally, after six months, we could be a part of the dream that we so diligently worked to make a reality.

Quotes from the The International Soundlings Collective about the piece:
“The opening piece merges acoustic objects, instruments and synthetic entities to one sound world.  A world built on resistance and struggle. Cracking wood, hissing amplifiers and feedback tones resonate in discord. Organic materials, electronic textures and various instrumental sections construct a spatial, physical piece that leads the listener through the challenging phases the designers face in their creative process, a theme embedded in the presented collection.

As the models begin to make their way around the catwalk, the soundscape morphs into the sort of cutting edge pop music which front-row goers know and love. Still carrying references to the more abstract sonic experience that came before, electronic beats emerge as the broken guitars and vocals were harmonized with the colors of gamelan. Layers of sounds are surrounding the listener, complementing the movement of the garments and the intricacy of their designs.”

Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) creates a fully immersive audio experience. It works by using software to mathematically synchronising an array of speakers that produce sound waves from a ‘virtual’ source.  Surround sound systems (for example Dolby 5.1) can only psycho-acoustically spatialise sound, or basically play a perceptual trick.

Using a WFS technique in combination with the right hardware made us able to physically place a sound wave anywhere within the array, as if the source were “virtually” there. Also, this audio technique eliminates the creation of a “sweet spot”, a limitation of surround sound systems that  tend to create a fixed, forward location of the sound field and thus a fixed perspective for the audience. Instead, WFS offers the ability to “hyperlocalize” sound to a distinct location within the array of speakers no matter where the audience is looking.

There were a number of other audio techniques that we researched including augmented sound and binaural recordings, but the WFS technique stood out. It offered the potential of creating immersive sound in a way that doesn’t need headphones but would still allow each member of the audience to have an individual, personalized emotional experience intensified by sound.

Before choosing sound designers to work with, we had to find a hardware solution that could realize this technique in a way that would be large enough to deploy at the Transformatorhuis location. We discovered the Game of Life’s Wave Field Synthesis system at STEIM, just a few blocks away from our studio.

In May, we decided on Soundlings because not only could their members master the open source WFSCollider (based on the SuperCollider programming language) software needed to operate the system, but they could create a one-of-a-kind sound design from original material that would fit the story of this  generation of iNDiViDUALS. We all realized that using audio in this innovative way at Amsterdam Fashion Week was something that had never been done before. Check out the other posts on this blog as well as the documents linked to our Project Page to find out more about exactly how we got here.

We’d like to thank our project’s supervisor Matthijs ten Berge for always being there for us in a pinch and for his help and guidance though all the complicated parts. Our deepest gratitude goes out to sound artists/musicians Tijs Ham, Roald van Dillewijn, Robin Koek, Giorgios Papadakis, Pinar Temiz, Jon Reus and Wouter Snoei for their eager participation and constant willingness to go above and beyond. The use of the WFS system would not be possible without thanks to Gilles Huygen and Arthur Sauer from the Game of Life foundation.

This project would not be successful without the assistance of Frank Kloos, Gijs Gootjes, Loes Bogers, Marco van Hout, Charlie Mulholland, and our intern co-workers here at the LAB. We’d like to recognize Arnoud Traa of De Auditieve Dienst for his assistance as a trusted advisor.

A very special thanks to Director of the AMFI, Souraya Bouwmans-Sarraf for her consistent faith in the project’s successful outcome, expert branding lecturer Charlotte Lokin for her enthusiasm in flexibility, and creative director of iNDiViDUALS Peter Leferink for his unwavering zeal for trying things in new ways. Naturally, our biggest appreciation goes out to this generation of AMFI iNDiViDUALS – thanks for all your help in making this project a smashing success!

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