IDEAMA Sound Path

In the four audio centers of the IDEAMA Music Archive, works in the field ofMusique Concrète, electronic music, computer music and music for loudspeakers, are staged and made available in a special way to the audience. On an U-formed beam which surrounds the entrance area of the ZKM_Media Library, four exemplary thematic fields from the IDEAMA data bank become visible.
Quadratic codes, which resemble QR codes, are installed on the floor − whereby, each work has a specific code as well as an illustration of each of the works in the form of an oscillation graph. The works are experienceable with the aid of an on-site iPad by becoming audible and visible in 3D simulation as augmented reality experience, once the iPad camera registers the code.

The Concept and Implementation of the Sound Path were development in 2012 in the context of the ZKM exhibition "Sound Art. Sound as Medium of Art" by the name soundARt, 7 Hearing Stations in Augmented Reality.

IDEAMA

IDEAMA was initiated in 1988 by Max Mathews, Johannes Goebel, and Patte Wood, all of them at that time members of Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics/CCRMA. The aim of IDEAMA’s collection was to preserve the most important and most endangered early works of electroacoustic music (up to about 1970) and to make these works publicly available. In 1990, CCRMA and the newly founded ZKM set IDEAMA up as a co-operative venture. At that time, the planned all–digital archive was considered as »not valid« by important grant institutions in the US… but finally the work at CCRMA was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The IDEAMA committees consisted of the 'International Advisory Board', whose prominent members promoted the international reputation and policy of the archive, and the two 'Regional Selection Committees' – one at ZKM for Europe and one at CCRMA for the Americas and Asia. The European selection committeewas joined by many important composers of the genre. The Regional Committees drew up a list of 708 works to be included out of which 138 could not be tracked down any more. This target collection was completed in 1997.

The IDEAMA structure is composed of the two 'founding institutions' ZKM and CCRMA together with the 'partner institutions' who collect and produce material themselves. 'Affiliate institutions' will be able to open subscriptions enabling them to add the collection to their own archives. 1996 CCRMA had to withdraw from the project for financial reasons and ZKM has been responsible for the collection since then.