The Transformation of archeological Sites into an Exhibition Space — Project Report on an immersive Installation

Reconstructing the experience of historic places of worship and theatre is a speculative process that can be approached by hermeneutics, art and spatial sampling. This was the approach taken in the exhibition A Slightly Curving Place, held in 2020 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. The exhibition, curated by Nida Ghouse, revolves around the work of Umashankar Manthravadi, an acoustic archeologist who analyses pre-modern performance spaces. In cooperation with the artist and the curator, architects and engineers designed an immersive, opto-acoustic stage within an exhibition space of the HKW. The final design comprised an Ambisonics speaker system, a programmable light grid, and reduced fittings to yield a semi-virtual three-dimensional imagination space. In this contribution, we recapitulate the design process of the performance space. Based on the initial design idea we describe the room acoustical and electro-acoustical implementation as well as a scheme of tools and methods used by light designers, engineers, and composers. Aiming to provide an integrated view of the technology and the complex process of creating the exhibition, the report can offer both conceptual and practical insights for exhibition and stage designers who intend to use immersive acoustic technology.