Oxyville – The Imagined City

Oxyville is an electronic musical creation inspired by Jean-Michel Jarre’s album Oxymore. Designed in 360° spatialised sound, the opus explores the connection between 3D audio and architectural space, where sound becomes the primary material for building an imaginary city.

Inspired by the disruptive concepts of Luigi Russolo in L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noises, 1913) and later by Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, the work invites the audience to close their eyes in order to experience the structure and dynamics of an architectural space solely through auditory perception.

Sound is thus transformed into a way for designing spaces and architectures, leaving the audience’s imagination to complete and build this utopian city, as architecture and sound share the common characteristic of unfolding in 360°, unlike the visual field, which is limited to 140°.

At the heart of Oxyville lies the idea that acoustics is no longer merely a secondary dimension of spaces, but a central and foundational material. Sounds, noises, and silences shape imaginary spaces that the listener feels by closing their eyes. Sonic textures become tools for perceiving invisible materials and structures. Each spectator, through an act of deep listening, becomes the architect of their own city, translating sounds into one’s own mental images.

The installation offers ten-minute immersive sessions using a dedicated sound spatialisation system used to design virtual spaces. The “intelligent” interactive setup simulates different sonic architectures and serves as a sensory vector, spontaneously stimulating the audience’s imagination to imagine and construct their own utopia.

Oxyville invites audiences to explore a sonic architecture that evolves through contrasting acoustic atmospheres. Shifting from the vast reverberation of a cathedral to the intimate softness of an anechoic chamber, among others, it enables the audience to feel the scale, materials, and textures of the imagined architectural spaces.

With their eyes closed, each spectator becomes an architect, constructing in their mind a unique city shaped by sound and imagination. Oxyville examines how sounds, beyond their musical function, can become the raw materials of a sonic architecture and invites us to reflect on the importance of acoustics in the creation of spaces.