Sounding ESS

Through the capture of acoustic fingerprints of several spaces within ESS, Sounding ESS allows participants to hear their own voice reflecting back at them from the restricted and inaccessible spaces inside ESS. By using higher-order ambisonic impulse response measurements, the work allows the listener to hear their own voice detached from their body; as if they are present inside ESS hearing an echo of their voice coming towards them. Participants can choose freely between acoustically measured positions in both the target and accelerator inside ESS, or, to just hear the microphone signal carrying their voice with no acoustics added. In this way, the work presents a unique opportunity to explore ESS through sound and our embodied experience of acoustics. Perhaps, we can intuit the scale and possibilities of ESS through hearing its unique spaces that are not easily, or not at all, accessible to us. Specifically with the target, this area will soon be rendered permanently inaccessible to humans. Sounding ESS therefore not only captures specific spaces, but, also specific times when it was temporarily possible to record these acoustics before the facility is running.