Title:	TOWARDS LUDOACOUSTIC IMMERSION PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSCENDING THE VIRTUAL AND THE REAL OF FUNCTIONAL SOUND AND MUSIC IN INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Author(s):	Hans-Peter Gasselseder
ISBN:	978-989-8533-38-8
Editors:	Katherine Blashki and Yingcai Xiao
Year:	2015
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Sonic Interaction, Game Audio, Music Expression, Semiotic Ecology, Immersion, Situation Awareness, Agency.
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	101
Last Page:	108
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	Regardless of listening to a small studio or to a huge cathedral, the environment in which sound and music is performed can act as an agent of meaning in how we relate to our actual surroundings. Applying a short reverb on a love song may point at a setting of upfront intimacy and accessibility. On the other hand, situating that song within the blurry inaccessible spaciousness of a cathedral may not improve your chances to make your date stay past dessert. In both cases expressive compatibility of room acoustics is determined on expectations generated from the music material: But does the environment as well as its functional setting in user interaction also arouse expectations towards the expressive properties of sound/music? And how might these properties affect selective attention, the sense of immersion/presence and finally the decoding of semiotic agents in the music dramaturgy of an interactive environment? In recorded sound-fx and music, expressive artifacts of space contribute to forming expectations on how an object [sound source] is interacting with an environment [room] while also accounting for the associated resonances occurring in that object. By switching attentional focus between action and resonance in object and environment as a result of comparing expectations to incoming stimuli, the context of a virtual situation is simulated by referencing to a syntax on body-object-environment interaction. This virtual syntax may be partially projected onto the situational context of the recipient leading to antecedents of immersion depending on emotional arousal and personality traits such as empathising-systemising. After having outlined a conceptual framework describing the mediation and agency detection of sonic expression within the acoustic properties of situational contexts, the last part of the paper shall provide an outlook on how these agents may be translated to meaningful structures that are yet to be studied in interactive media such as video games.
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