Last night creative producer and audio immersive expert Gen Cleary joined us for an ear-opening Campfire into the potential for sound, immersive audio and vibrations to create truly transformational experiences.

The full write-up will be coming soon – but for now, here are a few top takeaways, links and questions that emerged.

We also want to hear from you – what were your top takeaways? How might you use sound in your own work? What questions did it provoke? Add your comments below!

• Sound can be triggering as well as transformative – so we need to be very careful about how we use it and accept responsibility as experience creators. See these links from Ramsay Wood:

  27 Hz used in 'Irreversible' to produce panic
  19 Hz causing fear
  Active Denial System
  Ultrasonics as pest control
  
  
• Frequencies can be quite an individual thing... so perhaps we need a 'menu notes' on experiences like you have on restaurant menus: as in 1-3 chilis to say how hot something is, perhaps we need 1-3 mics (!!???) to indicate the type of high notes in an experience.
  
  
• Maybe in the future, we'll consider the entire built environment of our experiences, just giant haptics – much like The Hum's giant purple Buddha installation.
  
  
• There's a fine line between therapy and entertainment – how can we best walk it?
  
  
• The benefits of a "closed-eye" experience (like The Hum and also Dreamachine) to amplify our other senses and surround us in their potential/raise our awareness.
  
  
• Designing sound experiences doesn't mean excluding the deaf or hard of hearing community!
  
  
• "The right frequency just might change the world."

Follow-up questions to ask yourself:

1. How do you currently use sound in your experiences?
2. Where could you invoke sound or other senses to heighten your experience?
3. How could you tap into hypnagogic, psychedelic or other mental states to improve your audience’s wellbeing?