2023 - Sonic Room: Keep Swimming
Sonic Room is an immersive listening experience that transforms how we encounter music. In a world where most people consume audio through phone speakers and earbuds, Sonic Room creates dedicated spaces for deep, communal listening. Combining spatial audio technology, intentional design, and curated programming to help audiences hear music the way artists intended.
Think of it as a movie theater for albums.
Keep Swimming, the debut installation at Underground Atlanta, explored resilience and flow through sound. The title carries multiple meanings: the mental fortitude to keep moving forward, the way sound waves (.wav) envelop listeners, and how our bodies instinctively move to music like fish through water. With spatial audio as the medium, the experience surrounded 20 guests in a sonic ocean. Music circling, rising, and submerging them in a carefully designed environment.
The space itself became a submarine. Custom benches by James Williams III anchored the center of the room while projections and ambient lighting (blues, purples) transformed Underground Atlanta into an underwater vessel. Guests sat in near-darkness as a curated playlist (spanning rap, jazz, funk, alternative, and rock) moved through a specialized Dolby Atmos speaker system, creating a 30-minute journey where sound became architecture.
For many attendees, it was their first encounter with spatial audio's possibilities. The response was clear: people wanted more. They wanted spaces where they could experience music as artists intended, not as background noise, but as immersive environments worth gathering for.
Keep Swimming proved what Sonic Room set out to test: that when given the chance to truly listen, people remember what music can feel like.
Sonic Room is an immersive listening experience that transforms how we encounter music. In a world where most people consume audio through phone speakers and earbuds, Sonic Room creates dedicated spaces for deep, communal listening. Combining spatial audio technology, intentional design, and curated programming to help audiences hear music the way artists intended.
Think of it as a movie theater for albums.
Keep Swimming, the debut installation at Underground Atlanta, explored resilience and flow through sound. The title carries multiple meanings: the mental fortitude to keep moving forward, the way sound waves (.wav) envelop listeners, and how our bodies instinctively move to music like fish through water. With spatial audio as the medium, the experience surrounded 20 guests in a sonic ocean. Music circling, rising, and submerging them in a carefully designed environment.
The space itself became a submarine. Custom benches by James Williams III anchored the center of the room while projections and ambient lighting (blues, purples) transformed Underground Atlanta into an underwater vessel. Guests sat in near-darkness as a curated playlist (spanning rap, jazz, funk, alternative, and rock) moved through a specialized Dolby Atmos speaker system, creating a 30-minute journey where sound became architecture.
For many attendees, it was their first encounter with spatial audio's possibilities. The response was clear: people wanted more. They wanted spaces where they could experience music as artists intended, not as background noise, but as immersive environments worth gathering for.
Keep Swimming proved what Sonic Room set out to test: that when given the chance to truly listen, people remember what music can feel like.