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Immersive Rooms

Interactive Sound Installation

A five-surface room with nothing of its own to show until someone makes a noise — live audio analysis in TouchDesigner, played here by a percussionist.

An installation for Infinia's immersive room, built in 2024, in which the room has nothing of its own to show. Silence leaves it still; the visuals exist for exactly as long as there is sound to make them.

The showcase was played by a percussionist — a kit in the middle of the room, five surfaces answering it, nothing rehearsed between them. Any source works the same way: a voice, a phone speaker, a room full of people talking.

By
Özgür Kahraman — 3D & Immersive Artist
Client
Infinia
Year
2024
Role
Interactive Visuals · TouchDesigner
Tools
  • TouchDesigner
  • HeavyM
  • Particle Systems
  • GLSL

In the room

Sound as a controller

A microphone in the room feeds an audio interface into the workstation, and TouchDesigner's own audio CHOPs split what it hears into low, mid and high. Those bands control the colour, intensity and seed of each pattern, while particles are drawn toward them, forming cymatic-like figures — the visual cousins of the shapes that sand makes on a vibrating plate. Nothing is sequenced: the room only moves when someone makes a sound.

Showreel: the percussionist playing, green and violet cymatic patterns answering on the walls
The percussionist from above, hands on the congas, the floor around him lit blue
The percussionist in a white shirt against a wall of violet cymatic pattern
The percussionist playing, the green pattern moving on the wall behind
Hands striking a conga, the pattern blurred green behind
Yellow and cyan line patterns on the wall, a white arc of light spreading across the floor
Seen from above: the percussionist at the centre of a green kaleidoscopic floor
Seen from above: the percussionist at the centre of a violet kaleidoscopic floor
The Infinia edit, with sound
Phone clip: the percussionist under four looks, magenta, green, blue and gold
From above: the percussionist at the centre of the floor as the pattern changes colour

Projection mapping

Seeds for the sound to perturb

The patterns are generated in the same network as wall panoramas and floor passes at the installed ratio, so the room reads as one continuous surface. Each is a starting state; the audio then perturbs it live, so no two performances leave the same trace.

Wall panorama: a red kaleidoscopic lattice

drag to turn around the room

Wall panorama: a magenta lattice of crossing diagonals

drag to turn around the room

Wall panorama: an amber lattice of diamonds, each one mirrored into the next

drag to turn around the room

Wall panorama: a pink lattice with mirrored figures

drag to turn around the room

Floor pass: a magenta X of particles
Floor pass: a fine magenta lattice
Floor pass: an amber lattice of crossing diagonals, a ring in each cell

Workflow

Built entirely in TouchDesigner

Audio analysis, particle systems and real-time shader control, all inside TouchDesigner — no external analysis library. Live sound drives visual parameters such as colour, motion and pattern generation, and there is no timeline: the piece is exactly as long as the performance.

The TouchDesigner network: audio analysis feeding a chain of operators over a magenta cymatic pattern

Setup

Twelve projectors, one workstation

Twelve projectors are driven by a single workstation equipped with three GPUs, with HeavyM warping and blending the outputs; the microphone, the analysis and the render all run on that same machine, so the room reacts within a frame of the sound.

Projectors
12
GPUs
3
Workstation
1
Frequency bands
3
A percussionist at a pair of congas, a green cymatic pattern projected across the walls and floor around him