Speakers
Description
This talk will explore the contemporary phenomenon of immersion through an analysis of Dolby Atmos, the premier format for “immersive” cinematic sound. Introduced in 2011 as an audio counterpart to 3D films, Atmos is characterized by an increasingly complex, fluid, and all-encompassing theatrical soundscape. I argue that the sensation of auditory immersion in Dolby Atmos has been conceptualized as a productive site where listeners have an aesthetic experience of the otherwise insensible, ubiquitous digital media that suffuse contemporary culture. This talk will trace the historical turn from early stereophonic sound’s representational strategies of mimetic realism to twenty-first century immersive sound’s shifting orientation towards an affective, overwhelming experience of undifferentiated sensation. Compared to formats designed around static channels, as an immersive format, Dolby Atmos presents an increasingly flexible soundscape defined by relational movement of audio objects rather than the fixed sonic space. I argue that Dolby Atmos’s formulation of digital audio objects interacting on an imaginary, modular substrate owes much to the theoretical grounding of object-oriented programming in the field of computer science. My talk traces the development of the audio object from its conceptual origins in NASA’s pioneering VR sound technology up to the immersive sound of Atmos. Through the analysis of films released in Dolby Atmos, including Life of Pi (2012) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), I show how the concept of immersion is based in fantasies of the listener’s ability to hear a global, networked space of flux and multiplicity. I challenge dominant visual approaches to questions of representing and perceiving digital media, while remaining skeptical of how the aesthetics of immersion favor sensorial immediacy over a critical understanding of digital media.
Harry Burson teaches course in film and media in the English Department and the Moving Image Arts Program. His research explores the intersection of digital and aural cultures, with a particular interest in the history of sound technologies, platform studies, immersive media, sound art, AI voice, and film theory. His writing appears in October, Media Fields, and Sounding Out. He holds a PhD in Film & Media from the University of California Berkeley. At UIC, he has taught courses in film history, sound studies, games, apocalyptic cinema, and Chicago on film.