Long Throw: Energies, Atmosphere and the Expansion of Spatiality Through Sound Projection.

This practice-based research investigates how directional sound projection, through large-scale parabolic speakers, can create spatial territories and interventions across institutional, environmental, and urban contexts. Large-scale parabolic speakers enable directional sound projection by producing focused audio beams that establish temporary acoustic zones, functioning as spatial interventions. Current artistic practice with directional speakers includes smaller-scale installations that utilise limited-fidelity directional technology, while larger spatial works rely on conventional or horn speaker arrays to articulate spatial concepts. But small-scale systems lack the power for spatial intervention, and large arrays lack directional precision. Neither approach exploits the territorial possibilities of high-fidelity, large-scale directional projection. By employing large-scale parabolic speakers, artworks can establish clear boundaries across spatial scales that integrate with architectural and environmental sites. Such work shifts focus from auditory listening and ambient sound environments to the territorial exploration of spatial relationships. Drawing on Douglas Kahn’s energies-based approach to sound, Doreen Massey’s concept of relational space, and Boris Groys’s non-hierarchical approach to installation art practices, I position sound as energetic material in flux, operating relationally with sites. This theoretical framework addresses a significant limitation in contemporary installation art and sonic arts: the treatment of sound as auditory enhancement rather than spatial material. Through installations using parabolic speakers, I record environmental sounds, project directional audio beams, and navigate the resulting acoustic territories to investigate how sound can function as a primary spatial agent. My methodology offers installation art and sonic arts new possibilities for spatial transformation without the physical modification of environments and presents a shifting of contemporary spatial practice. Three installations demonstrate sound as the primary spatial agent. Long Throw X Het HEM challenged gallery hierarchies between speakers, artefacts, architecture, and visitors through territorial boundaries. Long Throw X Grabowsee operated across porous architectural edges, integrating seasonal changes, and generating spatial knowledge where interior and exterior blur. Long Throw X HKW created air-formed rooms within civic space, transforming the building into an architectural collaborator reflecting focused beams into urban-scale patterns. An additional work, Long Throw X Große Wasserspeicher, investigates the tension between large-scale directional systems and the acoustic constraints of confined infrastructure. These installations demonstrate how sound activates space as relational and in flux, enabling a spatially situated practice.