A colossal 3,000 sq m/ four-story-high multisensory gallery is immersing visitors at the ‘Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius’ exhibition at THE LUME Melbourne, located in the Melbourne Convention Center. An immersive exhibition celebrating the innovation, art and the timeless genius of Leonardo da Vinci, its centrepiece is the world’s largest multisensory gallery, enveloping visitors in an immersive journey, “engaging all the senses” with sights, sounds, scents, touch and taste that are said to recreate the ambiance of the Renaissance.
The exhibition was created and produced by Grande Experiences with spatial audio technology and sound design partner Des O’Neill at aFX Global. They collaborated with Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the custodians of Leonardo’s original manuscripts, the Codex Atlanticus, housed in Milan, Italy. This is the first time that Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus has been displayed in Australia.
Craig Smith, head of production, operations & technology, Grande Experiences, said: “Several years ago, when looking for a spatial audio solution for THE LUME Melbourne, aFX Global and ENCIRCLED were among the first companies we spoke to. IOSONO quickly became the solution due to its workflows and easy integration into our existing audio systems. Since then, aFX Global has worked with us on content development and deployment to our IOSONO systems, all supplied by ENCIRCLED.”
The score was curated and designed by Grande Experiences’ in-house music director Ben Crook, who worked closely with Des O’Neill, co-founder aFX Global and experienced sound designer, who explained: “Our task was to create custom spatial audio for every surface.”
The spatial audio system designed by Grande Experiences and Des O’Neill, with support from ENCIRCLED, for the venue’s launch in 2021 provides the foundation for THE LUME Melbourne’s sound designers and technicians to tailor bespoke experiences for each new exhibition. A key requirement was all system processing is done via IOSONO, utilising addressable filters on each of the outputs and localising the audio in the room live through SAW.
Jan Langhammer, joint managing director at ENCIRCLED explained, “A ‘global map’ provides quick access to all the loudspeakers throughout the venue with provision for separate spaces like feature projection locations, the Mezzanine and the 360 Room to each have their own immersive loudspeaker arrangements. From a content perspective we can control the audio playback in all these areas – some share the same content; others play individual soundtracks.”
“Since the venue’s opening, we’ve seen three major content updates and a number of ad-hoc events with special audio needs produced at THE LUME Melbourne thanks to the flexibility of IOSONO rendering and the forward-thinking sound design of the original loudspeaker layout.”
Max Röhrbein, joint managing director at ENCIRCLED, said: “This project has taken immersive experiences to new heights, thanks to the vision of Grande Experiences, the brilliance of sound design by aFX Global and cutting-edge audio processing powered by IOSONO. ‘Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius’ may be the best, but it is only the latest in an important trend which elevates audio to at least on par with the visual experience to breathe new life and astonishing insights into historical artifacts.”
Following the overwhelming success of the exhibition in Melbourne, Grande Experiences are now taking ‘Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius’ on tour with a carefully redesigned and modular set-up once again based on aFX Global spatial audio and IOSONO systems for maximum flexibility.
Smith explained: “Given that many of the touring venues will be smaller than THE LUME Melbourne, the exhibition design has to work within a variety of spaces and always with the visitor’s enjoyment at the centre of what we do.”
