Inform and evaluate a public space sound installation through perceptual evaluations, an art x science collaboration. (Niches Acoustiques II)

We will present the scientific and artistic collaboration currently implemented within the Perception and Sound Design team at IRCAM-STMS, in the framework of Valerian Fraisse's thesis, with the sound artist Nadine Schütz, composer in research at IRCAM. This collaboration aims to inform and accompany the composition of a perennial sound installation currently being created by Nadine Schütz. This installation, entitled "Niches Acoustiques", a winning project of the Participatory Budget of the City of Paris, is dedicated to an urban public space: the square of the new courthouse (Tribunal Judiciaire) of Paris. After a campaign of recordings and measurements allowing us to characterize the existing sound environment of the site, we seek, on the one hand, to inform the composition of this work based on laboratory listening tests and, on the other hand, to evaluate the impact of the installation on the urban soundscape in situ. During the presentation, we will jointly introduce the general framework of this mixed art/science research within a general sound design research approach, expose the methodology and the results of the first experimental phases of the study, and discuss the implications of this collaboration from a scientific and artistic point of views.