The Spatial Sound Institute’s mission is to foster the use of new sound technologies and listening-based practices to improve the quality of our personal wellbeing, our built environments and the interactions we share within them.

As our physical and digital spaces become more intelligent and responsive to our needs, and our media more seamlessly integrated and ‘immersive’, spatial sound plays an increasingly valuable role in a range of applications. As a medium, spatial sound offers forms for expression, interaction and introspection that can provide new directions in how we sense, think and feel our way through a digitally-augmented, interconnected world.

Our research and development programme defines the technologies and methodologies that can help improve the qualitative relationship between listeners and the environment: building a new ecology of listening for the 21st Century. The programme focuses on four distinct areas of study that consider the impact of sonic environments on our physical, psychological and spiritual well-being, our language, behaviour and communication, and a range of socio-political dimensions including our educational systems, our artforms and our political and economic structures.

Read more about our programme