Gerhard Eckel's Research Projects


Artistic research project Transpositions: Artistic Data Exploration
Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), Graz, Austria.
University of Applied Arts (Angewandte), Vienna, Austria.

April 2014 - March 2017.

The research project investigates the possibility of generating new auditory and visual forms based on the analysis and mathematical transformation of scientific data. In addition, the project studies whether and how these new forms are of scientific significance by asking the collaborating researchers to scientifically analyze the artistic outputs. By remaining true to the data while employing an artistic working method and, thus, by combining scientific and artistic values, the project contributes to the conceptual development of a space for research that is shared between art and science. This, however, implies that during the project both scientists and artists will be challenged to work in ways that are unfamiliar to them, either through confrontation with complex artistic interpretations of data or through exposure to very specific scientific working methods. On a meta-level, the project will report on the types of interactions that are deemed to be of value to either the artists, the scientists or both. "Transpositions" has been conceived together with Michael Schwab and is funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

References: Project Website


Interdisciplinary research project Dancing the Voice
Royal College of Technology (KTH) - Department for Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH)
Royal College of Music Stocholm (KMH) - Department of Composition and Conducting
Stockholm University (SU) - Department of Linguistics (Section of Phonetics)
University of Dance and Circus (DOCH)
March 2011 - February 2012.

Dancing the Voice (DTV) is an interdisciplinary research project carried out in the context of a one-year guest professorship at KTH Stockholm. The project will investigate the possibilities of establishing a connection between the articulatory movements of the human vocal organs and body motion in dance. By forming an interdisciplinary team involving four academic institutions in Stockholm, the project is expected to generate insights relevant for further scientific and artistic research and practice in the fields of musical acoustics, articulatory phonetics, computer music composition and performance, as well as in dance and choreography.

Dancing the Voice is funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for International Exchange of Scientists (SWGC).

Artistic research project The Choreography of Sound
Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), Graz, Austria.
September 2010 - August 2014.

The conceptual and technological means to create and project sound have been advanced dramatically through artistic practice as well as artistic and academic research, especially in the fields of computer music, acoustics, signal processing and information technology. Embedded in this rich tradition, the project aims at furthering the conceptual and practical means for (1) an integrative treatment of the spatial properties of musical sound in composition and (2) its interpretation embodied by dance performers - thus rendering sound susceptible to a choreographic treatment in both respects. In addition to these two main objectives, the project aims at (3) establishing an international network of artists and academics working on related topics and (4) exposing its methodology to the forming arts-based research community in Austria as well as on an international level. The methodology of the proposed project revolves around the notion of the artistic case study. The project will produce a number of such case studies, each of them focusing on a few, clearly specified and researchable questions. A triad of methods (conceptualization, modelling, and experimentation) will articulate the main project activities, which are artistic creation, aesthetic experience, scholarly reflection, and technological development. "The Choreography of Sound" has been conceived together with Ramón González-Arroyo and is funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

References: [84], [86], [87], Project Website


Scholarly and artistic research project Embodied Generative Music
Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), Graz, Austria.
September 2007 - April 2010.

Embodied Generative Music (EGM) is a research project directed at understanding the relationship between bodily and musical expression via artistic and scholarly research. EGM was conceived by Gerhard Eckel and Deniz Peters and funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. The idea behind "Embodied Generative Music" is to generate music from dance via interactive technology and, using this, to explore ways of intermedial expression, trying to identify links to specific structures and qualities and their organisation as found in music. Research into this double, intermedial expression, its resonances, counterpoints and redundancies, takes place at the CUBE, the IEM's performance space, which offers a hemisphere of loudspeakers, allowing for detailed sound spatialisation. For this project, the CUBE turns into an "aesthetic lab", permanently featuring a developing set of sound processing models in combination with a high-end motion tracking system.

References: [65], [67], [69], [70], [83], Project Website


Research and development project SonEnvir
Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM), Graz, Austria.
January 2005 - March 2007.

SonEnvir is a research project that investigates applying sonification in a number of scientific disciplines, in order to develop a general sonification software environment. It is the first collaboration of the four universities in Graz, Austria: The Karl Franzens University, the University of Technology, the Medical University, and the University for Music and Dramatic Arts. SonEnvir is funded by the Styrian Future Fund.

References: [56], [57], [59], [61], [62], [63], [64], [72], Project Website


Research and development project LISTEN - Augmenting everyday environments through interactive soundscapes
German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD), St. Augustin, Germany.
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany. Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM), Paris, France.
AKG Acoustics, Vienna, Austria. Insitute of Industrial Electronics and Material Science, University of Technology, Vienna, Austria.
January 2001 - January 2004.

LISTEN - a project funded by the European Commission's IST Programme (IST-1999-20646) - will provide users with intuitive access to personalised and situated audio information spaces while they naturally explore everyday environments. A new form of multi-sensory content is proposed to enhance the sensual, emotional and pedagogical impact of a broad spectrum of applications ranging from art shows to marketing or entertainment events. This is achieved by augmenting the physical environment through a dynamic soundscape, which users experience over motion-tracked wireless headphones. Immersive audio-augmented environments are created by combining high-definition spatial audio rendering technology with advanced user modelling methods. These allow for adapting the content to the users’ individual spatial behaviour. The project will produce several prototypes and a VR-based authoring tool. Technological innovations will be validated under laboratory conditions whilst the prototypes will be evaluated in public exhibitions.

References: [45], [46], [47], [49], [50], [51], [52], [54], [58], Project Website


Research and development project Virtual Museum
German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD), St. Augustin, Germany.
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany.
December 1998 - March 2004.

A virtual exhibition design environment has been developed in a co-operation with the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the contemporary art museum of the city of Bonn. The tool allows curators to interactively design art exhibitions in a virtual real-size model of the museum space. Scanned artworks are mounted virtually on the museum walls and the curators gain an authentic spatial impression of the exhibition in the CyberStage, IMK’s surround-view projection-based stereoscopic display system. The tool was implemented with Avango, IMK’s framework for virtual environment development.Virtual exhibition design has proven to greatly simplify the exhibition production process. Curators can experience how artworks interact with each other long before they have been packed, insured, shipped, and physically mounted in the museum. Exhibitions can be previewed and different designs and museum spaces can be compared easily without physically moving expensive and fragile artworks. As first real-world application, a retrospective of the American painter Philip Guston has been designed by the chief curator of the Kunstmuseum Bonn in a high-quality model of the museum's temporary exhibition space. The real exhibition opened in September 1999.

References: [43], [44], [48]


Research and development project ISIS: Integrated Simulation of Image and Sound
German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD), St. Augustin, Germany.
June 1996 - March 2004.


Research and development project Interfaces et représentations des sons
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Pompidou Center, Paris, France.
January 1994 - September 1995.


Fundamental research project Art and Technology
German National Research Center for Information Technology (GMD), St. Augustin, Germany.
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Pompidou Center, Paris, France.
September 1993 - December 1995.


Research and development project Foo: A modern sound synthesis language
Institute for Music and Acoustics, Center for the Arts and Media Technology Karlsruhe (ZKM), Germany.
January 1993 - (ongoing)


Fundamental research project The Musical Control of Sound Synthesis
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Pompidou Center, Paris, France.
January 1991 - January 1993.


Research and development project SignalEditor - SpecDraw
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Pompidou Center, Paris, France.
November 1989 - December 1990.


PhD thesis research project A Model of Multi-Tone Masking for the Analysis of Musical Sound Signals
Institute for Musicology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Acoustics Research Laboratory of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (KFS), Vienna, Austria.
January 1987 - June 1989.


Research project Computer Aided Composition, Project III
Funded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture.
March 1988 - March 1990.


Research and development project SUN-MERCURY Music Workstation
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Pompidou Center, Paris, France.
January 1987 - February 1988.


Development project Sound Tools
Acoustics Research Laboratory of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (KFS), Vienna, Austria.
September 1985 - December 1986.


Research project Time-Varying Filters
Institute for Sonology, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.
October 1985 - December 1985.


Development project SEDIT
Institute for Electroacoustics and Experimental Music (ELAC) of the
Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna, Austria.
September 1984 - August 1985.


Research project Tristan
Institute for Musicology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Acoustics Research Laboratory of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (KFS), Vienna, Austria.
September 1983 - August 1984.