Nicholas Ivansits

Overview

„Das Kaffeehaus der lauten Sprecher“ – Speaker Installation – FH St.Pölten

In the audio installation, „Das Kaffeehaus der lauten Sprecher“, the listener is transported in a cafe ambiente via 14 loudspeakers. Set up in an old coffee house we are dealing with two parallel conversations or stories, which are all connected in a larger story and a waitress tries to distract the listeners, she will go to the tables and wander through the conversations. With the help of Beatrix Mittermann, I did research on the topic of wealth distribution in Austria, but also on inheritance tax, euthanasia and on the topic of wage equalization.

I tried to incorporate these fact-based statistics and this knowledge into the problems of the society by making it as authentic as possible. Especially for the discussion of two multimillionaires, I had to use real quotes, because they seem the most authentic. And of course I also wanted to show that these people are a problem for the society. Because an unregulated market economy has the disadvantage that the distribution of wealth is limited to a small percentage of society. And that’s why the facade of the coffee house and the entire radio play is a direct criticism to the unregulated market economy, but also to the austrian politicians.

Die Kegelbahn am Stephansdom

An Audiowalk with Echoes XYZ

With the audio walk „The bowling alley at St. Stephen’s Cathedral“ the listeners find themselves in a unique scenery. It is a game of skittles in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, or rather the adaptation of a legend of it. With a new version, in which church and science, bowling for their achievements.

Is the church an old construct that is outdated and wrong nowadays? Yes and No. These and many other questions that concern our society today are discussed in the radio play „The Bowling Alley at St. Stephen’s Cathedral“ from the point of view of a priest and a scientist.

With the help of Echoes XYZ, they will be able to walk around throughout the radio play and experience the story in different spaces.

Summer School 2021

Audio Augmented Reality with Audiokinetic Wwise

A journey through time. With the help of Unity and Wwise, the workshop class Audio Augmented Reality with Audiokinetic Wwise will transform the Domplatz in St.Pölten, which is currently used as a parking lot, back to mediaeval times. The users expierence through headphones a historical life in a new splendor. Among other things, the medieval practices and realities of this time are translated into the present.

Jim Curious – Reise in die Tiefen des Ozeans

A 3D Dolby Atmos Audio Play

Dolby Atmos, this is usually understood as a great cinema feeling. Loud bass and action-packed film. What particularly impresses me with 3D sound is the immersion in another world and so I took a children’s book for sound. Jim Curious the journey into the depths of the ocean.

It is about a diver who, as the title says, dives into the depths of the ocean. Why I took this book had two reasons. On the one hand, the ocean is fascinating and mysterious, like an alien planet, and on the other hand, the children’s book was designed to have 3D images itself. Thus, with the old 3D glasses and the new Dolby Atmos process, you are drawn into a radio play that has never existed before.

I digitized the book and integrated camera movements using After Effects. I also traveled to Trieste to capture an authentic harbor setting. For that I recorded water, caves and boats. Further, a lot happened in my bathroom with pots, hands and sound bars. Afterwards I combined all the collected recordings with self-composed music and adapted it to the video. The only thing I wanted to do without completely was a voice. I wanted to convey emotions and feelings only with images and sounds.

Master Thesis

The influence of acoustic stimuli on memory consolidation during sleep.

Abstract
Aim of the study: To investigate the effects of auditory stimuli on memory consolidation during sleep, and the subjective perception of sleep while wearing headphones.

Study design: Five female and five male subjects (M = 23.80 years, SD = 0.919) participated in this study. Their sleep and memory were assessed over two nights. At the beginning, general sleep quality (PSQI) and biographical data were collected. Subsequently, subjects completed the word pair tasks independently using a shared Google Drive folder. During one of the two nights, acoustic stimuli was inducted using the headphones (Nightbuds – from the company Kokoon). During the other night, the subjects wore headphones without playing any acoustic stimulus.

Results: The expected effects of acoustic stimuli on memory consolidation could not be confirmed by the results. However, a correlation between subjective sleep patterns and headphones was found. However, the comfort and volume of the headphones were found to have a direct correlation on the subjects‘ ability to fall asleep.

Conclusion: The results suggest that there is no difference between memory consolidation with and without acoustic stimuli during sleep in this small population (N=10). Furthermore, it could be suggested that especially in the consumer area of sleep technology, the focus should lie on the comfort of the devices. Similarly, a study on the recommended volume of audio pieces during sleep could be helpful for consumers.

Keywords: memory consolidation, auditory stimuli, sleep quality, memory retention, headphone, sleep technology

Writing time: 01.07.2022 – 15.01.2023

Supervisor: Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Kerstin Hoedlmoser