New developments for spatial music in the context of the ZKM Klangdom: A review of technologies and recent productions

he Institute for Music and Acoustics is a production and research facility of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. In this paper, we present some general thoughts on spatial music and its implementations as a motivation for our efforts. We outline the development of the ZKM Klangdom, a multi-loudspeaker facility for spatial sound diffusion that aims to provide artists and composers with new possibilities. We present the software project for controlling the Klangdom, Zirkonium, together with the key innovations in its new version Zirkonium MK2. A survey of examples of recent productions by guest artists is presented, and the Klangdom’s achievements in the context of real-time control and diffusion are portrayed.