Spontaneous Adventure
Multisensory Installation Bridging Reality and Dream
In collaboration with Chenyan Yu, Visual Interaction Designer and ITP Graduate
Overview
Spontaneous Adventure is a multisensory installation that blurs the boundary between the real and the imagined. Created as the thesis project of visual interaction designer Chenyan Yu at NYU ITP, the piece invites audiences into a surreal dream world constructed through four synchronized visual channels and a dynamic, immersive soundscape.
I collaborated with Chenyan to compose and spatialize the audio environment, transforming the space into a responsive dream chamber. The work was designed for and presented within the 50-speaker spatial audio array at the 370 Jay Street Audio Lab.
Concept & Collaboration
The core intent of the installation was to create a bridge between waking life and the subconscious. While the visuals guide viewers through nonlinear, layered dream imagery, the sound design grounds and expands the experience—evoking time dilation, memory echoes, and dream logic through spatial movement and sonic texture.
Working closely with Chenyan, I developed an immersive soundtrack that responded to each visual transition. The spatialization allowed the sound to behave like a character in the dream, sometimes drifting, sometimes confronting, always alive in the room.
Spatial Experience
We leveraged the full capabilities of the 50-channel speaker array to position sound elements in continuous motion. Textural shifts, whispered voices, harmonic washes, and ambient motifs circulated throughout the space, enveloping viewers and pulling them deeper into the dream world. The system enabled precise localization and dynamic interplay between sound and image.
Presentation
🎓 Premiered as part of NYU ITP Thesis Week 2023
🧠 Installed in the Spatial Audio Lab at 370 Jay Street, Brooklyn
🖼️ Accompanied by a 4-screen visual narrative created in TouchDesigner
Impact
Spontaneous Adventure offered visitors a contemplative, enveloping experience where memory and imagination became spatial. It functioned as both personal meditation and collective immersion, a dreamworld made tactile through light and sound.
The piece continues to serve as a creative model for interdisciplinary collaboration across visual interaction, spatial audio, and narrative installation.
