When I entered the installation called ‘Hearing From Within A Crossfade by Lewis Wolstanholme’ at IRCAM, I was immediately surrounded by a very special atmosphere. Sounds were floating through the space — soft, detailed, and constantly changing. It didn’t feel like listening to a normal piece of music. Instead, it felt like the sounds were alive, moving gently around me and transforming into something new all the time.
What made this experience so fascinating was how the sounds seemed to blend into each other without clear breaks. One texture slowly became another, sometimes so smoothly that I barely noticed the change. I later found out that this was made possible by a special technique called Joint Time-Frequency Scattering Transform. This method allows sounds to be transformed and combined in a very natural way, almost like they were breathing.
The installation was created by Christopher Mitcheltree together with IRCAM. He used this technique to make sounds not only change over time but also move through space. Depending on how a sound behaved — for example, how much it was vibrating or how high or low it was — it appeared at different places in the room. This made the whole space feel like part of the music.
For me, it felt like I wasn’t just listening, but actually walking inside a sound. It was a very inspiring and calming experience, and I stayed much longer than I had planned.
IRCAM – Link: https://forum.ircam.fr/article/hearing-from-within-a-crossfade/
