Paper Session 2
11.30-11.50pm: Spatial Fission/Fusion: Composing with Spectral Decomposition in IKO Systems by Ben Leonard
This talk presents a compositional approach based on spatial fission and fusion, developed through the use of spectral decomposition in immersive audio environments. Drawing on Albert Bregman’s theories of auditory scene analysis, the approach treats sound as something that can be separated into constituent elements and recombined through spatial relationships, rather than remaining fixed as a single object.
Using spectral decomposition techniques, sounds are divided into components such as transients, sinusoidal partials, and noise bands. These elements are then distributed across space and recombined through their interaction within multi-channel systems. This enables a mode of composition in which sound identity emerges dynamically, shaped by the spatial configuration of its parts.
The talk focuses on the use of the IKO spherical loudspeaker in combination with multi-channel loudspeaker arrays, examining how different spatialisation systems produce distinct compositional behaviours. The reflective and architecture-dependent nature of the IKO contrasts with the direct projection of conventional loudspeaker arrays, allowing spectral components to be distributed and recombined in ways that are not possible within a single system.
A central case study will be Breathwork (2024), a spatial audio work exploring the sonic properties of air through these techniques. The piece demonstrates how sounds can break apart, diffuse, and recombine across space, including site-specific behaviours such as interaction with architectural features.
The presentation will outline key compositional strategies, including the spatial separation of spectral components, the use of multiple centres of sonic activity, and the role of architecture in shaping recomposition. It will also reflect on how these techniques extend the IKO beyond a playback system into a compositional instrument, enabling new approaches to structuring sound in space.
Ben Leonard (BJ Leo) is a sonic artist and composer based in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), New Zealand. His work focuses on developing compositional approaches using spatial audio and spectral decomposition, particularly through the concepts of sonic fission and fusion first proposed by Albert Bregman. Using these techniques, he decomposes sounds into their spectral components and recombines them across space and time, creating immersive and site-responsive works in which sound identity emerges through spatial relationships.
He is a graduate of Te Kōkī – New Zealand School of Music, where he specialised in ambisonic and multi-channel composition. His practice explores the interaction between different spatial audio systems, including the IKO spherical loudspeaker and multi-channel loudspeaker arrays, as a means of extending the compositional possibilities of spatial sound.
In 2024, he presented his first solo exhibition Breathwork at Toi Pōneke Gallery (Wellington), combining IKO and multi-channel systems in a site-specific installation. The work was later presented at Audio Foundation (Auckland). In 2025, he undertook a residency at SpaesLab (Berlin) and completed the 4DSOUND Spatial Sound Institute workshop in Amsterdam, supported by Creative New Zealand.
His work has been presented at the International and Australasian Computer Music Conferences, and he has released music on labels including Related Articles (NZ), Finest Ego (DE), and Strange Behaviour (NZ).
11.50-12.10pm: Embodying Spatial Sound with AI by Aaron Einbond
How can artificial intelligence (AI) help to embody spatial sound synthesis and what role can spherical loudspeaker arrays play? Despite the importance of sound’s situated spatial presence for music perception and creation, it has so far not been the focus of musical applications of AI. In contrast, three-dimensional (3-D) loudspeakers, such as the IKO icosahedral loudspeaker array, suggest promising possibilities to re-embody sound synthesis using machine learning from natural acoustic phenomena.This presentation will explore aesthetic and technical approaches to 3-D sound in the series of compositions Prestidigitation I-III. It will also introduce software based on these works developed at SPARC Lab for research in immersive sound and movement at City St George’s, University of London. Together these tools offer possibilities for working with the IKO and other spatial audio applications for beginners and
Aaron Einbond’s work connects instrumental music, sound art, field recording, and interactive technology to explore connections between performer, listener, space, and place. Record label all that dust released his portrait album Cosmologies performed by cellist Séverine Ballon, pianist Alvise Sinivia, and the Riot Ensemble conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum. His album Cities features collaborations with ensemble Yarn/Wire and Matilde Meireles, and his portrait album Without Words was recorded by Ensemble Dal Niente. Other recent collaborators include EXAUDI, L’Instant Donné, United Instruments of Lucilin, Ensemble Recherche, soundinitiative, loadbang, Opera Lab Berlin, soloists Maxime Echardour, Samuel Stoll, and Marco Fusi; and festivals Présences, Venice Biennale, rainy days, November Music, Transit, Nordic Music Days, and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Giga-Hertz Förderpreis, and Artistic Research Residencies at IRCAM and ZKM. He teaches at City St George’s, University of London, where he directs SPARC Lab for research in immersive sound and movement funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Huddersfield, and Harvard University and studied at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, the University of California Berkeley, and IRCAM with teachers including Mario Davidovsky, Julian Anderson, Edmund Campion, and Philippe Leroux.
12.10-12.30pm: Inside Outside In: Designing Machines for Simultaneous Perspective by Tim Yates
Inside Outside In: Designing Machines for Simultaneous Perspective
This presentation introduces The Ball Balancer (working title) which I am developing as part of a practice-based PhD at the University of Greenwich. It is an autonomous robotic sculpture that uses spatial audio and physical movement to explore the relationship between mechanical precision and acoustic phenomena. It is a ball balancing machine that manipulates a steel ball around a flat wooden plate and spatialises the live acoustic sound into the spatial audio rig in real time, meaning that the sound of the ball rolls around the listener’s head. This places the audience outside the physical machine and inside the virtual machine simultaneously. The installation is designed to explore the relationship between physical and virtual spaces and to examine how immersive technology can enable the multiple simultaneous perspectives that would otherwise not be achievable. It is the first in a planned series of installations.
I will discuss the practicalities and design considerations of developing the machine, as well as some of the artistic and theoretical questions I aim to address. As my research progresses I will build on the ideas and outcomes of this project to refine my thoughts in the following areas:
• Does the simultaneous condition produce a perceptual experience that neither physical nor virtual space achieves alone?
• Does the mechanical real-time generation of virtualised sound matter to that experience?
• How does disrupting habitual perception — forcing attention onto the act of listening itself using interactive and mechanical elements — change what we’re capable of hearing?
In developing this and subsequent installations I will engage with these questions directly through practice, building theoretical frameworks in parallel with the work rather than in advance of it. Existing frameworks — presence research, VR discourse, installation theory — tend to treat immersion as the substitution of one spatial frame for another. What interests me is what happens when both frames are present simultaneously and neither is optional and, in particular, what role mechanical and physical interactive systems can play in that condition
Tim Yates is an award-winning artist and researcher building kinetic and interactive sound art installations using spatial audio. He is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD in immersive arts at the Sound/Image Research Centre at the University of Greenwich. Previous exhibitions and collaborations include the Tate Modern, V&A, Imperial College and Abbey Road Studios.
He is also Research and Innovation Executive at Drake Music, working at the intersection of music, tech and Disability, leading an innovative programme to ensure that everyone has an instrument they can play. Previous and current partnerships and collaborations include Sony, Native Instruments, Royal Holloway University, Royal Northern College of Music, Paraorchestra among many others.
He has presented at numerous conferences, organisations and festivals including SXSW, REMIX Summit, The Royal Society, No Limits Hong Kong, AbleAssembly, ADC and NIME.