“Space is not stable, space is a process.” – Henri Lefebvre. Inspired by Lefebvre’s work on the production of space, Synchresis is a peek into a frozen sonic hyperspace. A cube, within a cube, within a cube gives you the chance to encounter space as it transforms. Standing inside, you hear the real-time sound of ice melting back into water through an 8-channel spatial sound system.

Synchresis is an interactive spatial sound installation. It is a peek into a sonic hyperspace. It is composed of multiple cubes within each other that represent different aspects of the same space. The cubes are with the smallest being in the center and the largest forming its outer edges. The largest cube is the cube of sound.

The spatial sound setup is designed to envelop the visitor with a 360o sound sphere that plays back the sounds coming from the center of the space. Inside the sound cube lies the light cube. The light cube is composed of a cubic framework of LED lights that provide the only light for vision within the space. Inside the light cube hangs a cube of ice.

This cube carries the most weight in this experience, and is the “heaviest” thing inside. Inside the cube of ice is a steel frame of a hypercube, which represents all cubes being one big hypercube. The ice also has a number of frozen hydrophones designed specifically to survive water and low temperatures, and to pick up the slightest vibration within the cube of ice.

The ice melting process is picked up with the hydrophones and played back in real-time on the surrounding spatial sound system. In addition, a hemispherical container lies beneath the cube of ice, equipped with a contact microphone to pick up the sound of melting water drops as they hit the surface of the container. This gives the experience a temporal dimension similar to a heartbeat that shall soon fade away with the ice.