Auralization: What can acoustics tell us about digital lived experience?
Catriona Cooper
Abstract The process of auralization has been a focus of acousticians for many years. As with early years of visualisation cultural heritage sites have often been used as case studies for exploring how acoustics can be modelled. The work has mostly been either recording sites as they stand today (Martellotta, 2009), or beginning to model them using software packages such as CATT and Odeon (Farnetani, Prodi, & Pompoli, 2008). In recent years archaeologists have begun to engage with sound in more detail, some of these approaches have been theoretical (Hamilakis, 2011; Weiss, 2008) or exploratory (Reznikoff, 2008; Waller, 1999), while others more technologically based (Mlekuz, 2004). Unlike digital visualisation modelling acoustics has not been heavily critiqued and there has not been the drive for archaeologists to learn to undertake the work independently. Instead archaeologists to team up with acousticians (Till, Scarre, & Miguel Fazenda, 2013; Till, 2011; Watson & Keating, 1999; McBride, 2013). However, this does not foster a true understanding of the results, acousticians do not theoretically engage with space, while archaeologists do not understand the nuances of the technique. In this paper I present a methodology for discussing the acoustical properties of a closed space. Focussing on or case study of Ightham Mote in Kent this paper discusses geometrical acoustic methods of auralizing the Great Hall. I will bring together the results of the survey to discuss the experience of sound in the place and how this can be used alongside our understanding of the experience of sound in a medieval household.
