There and Back Again Composing for Networked Reverberation Chamber and Live Orchestra

This paper documents the deployment of a mobile, web-based, real-time distributed reverberation chamber named the Auxtrument designed for a live concert setting. Rather than presenting a technical case study, the project is framed as an artistic and collaborative investigation into how networked audio systems can inform and transform musical composition and performance. In close collaboration with a contemporary orchestra, we composed two (2) site-specific works that utilise the inherent latency and uncertainty of WebRTC media streams over a mobile network–not as obstacles to overcome, but as musical parameters. Through this process, we explored new aesthetic possibilities afforded by the system, foregrounding temporal instability and environment as integral compositional tools.