Évènements

Over the past couple of decades, my interest in computer game sound has led me to formulate ideas regarding the role of sound in immersion in computer game worlds, our perception of sound waves, and the broader questions of what is sound? and what is presence? In this talk, I provide a short critique of the standard definition of sound—that sound is a sound wave—and use this to present the view that sound is a perception; that the sound we perceive is not the sound wave we sense, and, indeed, that perceiving sound does not necessarily require the presence of a sound wave at all. I then show how sound plays a role in the feeling of presence in virtual worlds, highlighting the problem of realism in the design of such worlds if current theories on presence in such worlds are to be believed. I conclude by introducing a conception of presence in the 'real' world that I am currently developing.

Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard is the Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has published widely across subjects as diverse as sound, biofeedback in computer games, virtuality, the Uncanny Valley, presence/immersion, and IT systems, and he also writes free, opensource software for virtual research environments (WIKINDX). Mark is series editor for the Palgrave Macmillan series PalgraveStudies in Sound, and his books include the anthologies Game Sound Technology & Player Interaction (IGI Global 2011) and The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality (Oxford University Press 2014), and, with co-author Tom Garner, a monograph entitled Sonic Virtuality (Oxford University Press 2015). A two-volume co-edited anthology, The Oxford Handbook of Sound & Imagination, was published in 2019 as was the co-authored The Recording, Mixing & Mastering Reference Handbook, both from Oxford University Press. He is currently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music & Sound (forthcoming 2023) and, in early 2021, started the project Urban Greening: Ultrasonics and AI for Sustainable Biodiversity in Cities, which investigates the presence and effects of ultrasound in urban areas.