AES Dublin ‘excites, educates and illuminates’
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“It was a pleasure to bring the AES convention to Dublin for the very first time,” commented convention co-chair and Dublin resident Enda Bates, “and an excellent way to kick off the formation of the new AES Ireland regional section in style. It was also great to see a more diverse range of presenters and topics, something which was specifically highlighted by many attendees as a welcome development.”
The convention content was packed with options, notes co-chair Ben Kok, with 200 individual workshops, tutorials, paper and poster presentations and special events held in parallel across the four days of AES Dublin in seven auditoriums in the Dublin Convention Centre.
This year’s convention featured the AES Heyser Memorial lecture Learning to Listen by industry innovator and digital reverb pioneer David Griesinger and the keynote address – arranged by AES Dublin’s third co-chair, Mariana Lopez – Inclusive Sonic Interactions presented by Aalborg University Copenhagen Professor Stefania Serafin.
“For topics like cathedral acoustics and spatial electroacoustic music and education, there was a link between the technical programme, off-site and special events,” Kok elaborates, “Overall, immersive/3D sound and spatial audio had a strong presence at the convention, covering both sonic capture as well as reproduction through loudspeakers or headphones.”
The theme of diversity and inclusion was brought to the forefront of the convention with Lopez’s opening ceremonies challenge for support and participation of the society’s initiatives. Questions about how the Society moves forward towards equality, noted Lopez, “are ultimately about who we are, and who we hope to be”.
As AES Dublin concluded, the site selection of Vienna, Austria, was announced for AES Europe in 2020 (25-28 May).
(Jim Evans)
