This studio course explores how sound can reframe interior space and reshape our surroundings. Students will create site-responsive works for indoor locations across the RISD campus, including lobbies, galleries, gathering places, and other settings. They will work with the IKO, an icosahedral loudspeaker array that uses beamforming, a technique for directing and shaping sound in space, to produce immersive three-dimensional listening experiences.

Through on-site research and experimentation, we will examine how acoustics, architecture, and social dynamics influence auditory perception. Shared interiors are approached not only as physical structures but also as cultural and behavioral contexts, considering how audio can guide attention, shift atmosphere, support gatherings, or provoke new forms of encounter. Discussions and examples from contemporary art and design practices provide perspective on sound as a spatial and experiential medium.

Weekly public listening activations will temporarily transform familiar areas into sites for focused listening and collective reflection. The course centers on a series of short-term interventions that reveal new auditory possibilities within the everyday interiors of RISD.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective