Large-Scale Mobile Audio Environments for Collaborative Musical Interaction

New application spaces and artistic forms can emerge when users are freed from constraints. In the general case of human-computer interfaces, users are often confined to a fixed location, severely limiting mobility. To overcome this constraint in the context of musical interaction, we present a system to manage large-scale collaborative mobile audio environments, driven by user movement. Multiple participants navigate through physical space while sharing overlaid virtual elements. Each user is equipped with a mobile computing device, GPS receiver, orientation sensor, microphone, headphones, or various combinations of these technologies. We investigate methods of location tracking, wireless audio streaming, and state management between mobile devices and centralized servers. The result is a system that allows mobile users, with subjective 3-D audio rendering, to share virtual scenes. The audio elements of these scenes can be organized into large-scale spatial audio interfaces, thus allowing for immersive mobile performance, locative audio installations, and many new forms of collaborative sonic activity.