ReFocus Austria Event Series: "AREA" - Fennesz plays NOUS Sonic

This series of events will take place within the framework of the ReFocus Austria Initiative.

About ReFocus Austria

ReFocus Austria is an ongoing campaign of the Austrian government to support and rebuild the Austrian economy across the globe while the world emerges from the pandemic. It is carried out by the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs in cooperation with the Austrian Chamber of Commerce’s international offices, the Austrian National Tourist Office, and representatives of other federal ministries to open doors for Austrian companies abroad, and to secure and create jobs and investment in Austria itself. The campaign focuses on the core pillars upon which Austria’s economy will be built in the future: renewable energy, e-mobility, sustainability, digital transformation, infrastructure, urban technology, and tourism. All over the world, the “Made in Austria” label is synonymous with quality and reliability, as well as world-class design, engineering, and craftsmanship.

About the Event

At our event you get to experience and see the nexus between Culture, Music, Innovation and Business unfold. What does that mean?

You will be able to try out the innovative Austrian tech-product, namely . NOUS Sonic is a very precise indoor-locating-headphone-system, originally developed for museum-purposes, that can be used for a unique augmented listening experience. You can witness the Theater of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York transform into a music studio in which you can individually experience an interactive sound installation by the well-known Austrian electronic musician with the NOUS Sonic headphones.

Disclaimer: The sounds are pre-installed, this is not a live performance by the artist. But you get to be your own artist by creating your very own sound mixes, simply by walking through and looking around the theater. Sounds cool right?

Augmented Listening / Sound Installation

“AREA“: The well known Austrian electronic musician Christian Fennesz composed an interactive piece of electronic music, which is individually perceived by the audience, using the world new system NOUS Sonic. By moving and viewing around (move- and gaze sensitive system) within an empty, darkened room at the Theater of the ACFNY, each listening participant is individually creating its own audio- experience, mixing Fennesz’ music by individual movements and views, hearing it exclusively in realtime via headphone.

Interactive multi-channel installation

NOUS Sonic is specially designed to bring the audience’ experience to a strongly immersive level: Fennesz composed a multi-channel-piece, using electronic sounds, field recordings and effect-tracks. With the NOUS Sonic Configurator, those tracks will be virtually located by Fennesz within the ACFNY Theater: The audience is moving and viewing within those areas and is thereby creating and hearing individually re-mixed and real-time-processed audio via headphone:

• High-End electronic music from Austria meets high-end technology from Austria
• Innovation and audience engagement
• Audience participation (individually life-re-mixing)

Engage the space/audience - individually immersive expeerience

Based on Fennesz’ composition, the ACFNY-Theater turns into a studio setting: The audience is individually exploring the composition as well as the artists’ audio-allocations within the Theater: The technology provided by NOUSdigital allows to refer directly to the room-setting of the ACFNY-Theater, the 3D-areas defined by Fennesz will correspond to spatial specifications:

• Directly engaging the audience (individually live re-mixing by moving and viewing)
• Referencing the Theater of ACFNY (by location-specific defining the different sound-areas)

Host or Publisher Austrian Cultural Forum NY