The rise of immersive audio: Progressum unifies Vivid House for Vivid Sydney 2022

The collaborative 3D walk-through visual art experience and concept was created by Sydney based producer and sound system designer Des O’Neill, lighting designer Peter Rubie, and sound designer and composer Peret von Sturmer, combining art, light, sound, and video to stimulate all senses.

Vivid Sydney is the annual festival of Light, Music and Ideas which transforms Sydney’s CBD into a fusion of creativity, innovation, and technology for 23-nights. In 2022, the renowned Light Walk stretched continuously from Sydney Opera House to Central for the first time, passing through new parts of the city including The Goods Line and Central Station.

“In what was a truly memorable ‘wow’ experience, the team at aFX Global helped develop Vivid House so that it could envelope the visitor in art in a monumental way. We wanted audio to be as much of a feature of Vivid Sydney and Vivid House really did encapsulate the history of electronic music and unique soul of the city. It became a real talking point for visitors,” said Gill Minervini, Festival Director at Vivid Sydney 2022.

Built around precise spatial synchronicity and featuring a state-of-the-art, three-dimensional IOSONO sound system and dazzling lighting array, Progressum at Vivid House was an exercise in sonic and visual immersion.

“Progressum at Vivid House was a great demonstration and showcase of our 3D and immersive technologies,” explained Des O’Neill, managing director at aFX Global Pty Ltd, the company behind the audio and lighting elements of Vivid House

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Vivid House was a 14 x 5m square 360-degrees walk-through experience. aFX Global provided audio included an authentic IOSONO immersive sound system powered with Barco’s IOSONOinside software, for dynamic room acoustics combined with an impressive lighting array and smoke effects.

Audio speakers and lighting fixtures were packed under the floor, behind the LED screens, above the screens and right through the ceiling above the audience showcasing artworks of all five featured artists.

The creativity and power of the entire team resulted in a scalable touring structure for interactive sound and video-driven art for any combination of artwork and any environment, either indoors or outdoors.

“We’re delighted that Destination NSW through Vivid Sydney trusted us to create an immersive experience and I consider it an honour that they chose to work with our team,” said Des O’Neill. “It shows exactly what can be achieved by combining 3D audio, lighting and video for immersive and VR experiences and clear that we will collaborate with Peter Rubie and Peret von Sturmer on future projects for great festivals like this - watch this space.”