X-Scape Lab records Hani farming. [Photo provided to english.liangjiang.gov.cn]

In a remote village in Southwest China's Yunnan, a soundscape project was carried out to protect Hanihaba, an ancient ballad and a wordless encyclopedia that records the religious culture and living customs of the Hani people. This is one of many scenarios where Xie Hui and his team X-Scape Lab explore the potential for sound to make a difference.

"We analyze from the perspective of soundscape ecology and bring forward effective measures to protect, reshape, and promote the intangible cultural heritage," said Xie Hui, a professor at Chongqing University and the director of X-Scape Lab.

A soundscape is the acoustic environment in context perceived by humans. Sound comes closest to accessing the true essence of all media and enables the full potential of soundscape design, which ranges from better living experiences by optimizing architectural design to therapeutic purposes, according to Xie.

In his latest soundscape design exhibition Listening to the Future, the team showcased their recent achievements. The installation piece Soundscape Materialization showed how sound helps present vivid scenes and enhances human perception. The piece captures four typical soundscapes in Southwest China's Bashu region through audio-visual interaction, including The Pine-soughing Valleys, Evening Rain of the Ba Mountain, Running Water over Stone, and Cold Apes and Returning Birds. Each of the four items features an audio clip, an abstract painting, and a poem to materialize the intangible soundscapes.

The Pine-soughing Valleys is displayed on Listening to the Future. The exhibition was held at Jinshan ECool in Liangjiang New Area. [Photo provided to english.liangjiang.gov.cn]

The soundscape is composed of different sound sources and rhythms, and when integrated with images it becomes a penetrating and expressive reflection of the dynamic change of objective things and creates an immersive visual and auditory scenario for the audience, according to Xie.

As vision is the dominant sense, the role of sound has long been underestimated in the process of human perception, communication, and action in the living environment, Xie said. He believes the future to be a space for an all-around experience of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.

The concept of the all-around experience is also embodied in the architectural design of the team. A project was carried out at the Kunming National Botanical Museum for immersive experiences of desert plants.

"We reformed the Desert Greenhouse Exhibition Hall with architectural techniques and adopted approaches of immersive visual creation and three soundscape elements, including wind, sand, and water," said Yang Ping, who led the project. In the simulated environment, visitors can understand how it feels to be in a distant place, unlike in everyday scenarios.

In 2020, the restorative benefits of soundscape were approved through a research project on anxiety disorder jointly carried out by the team and a local hospital. The project showed that patients receiving adjuvant treatment of soundscape experienced significant improvement compared with those receiving ordinary treatment.

"Access to high-quality acoustic environments may positively affect well-being, quality of life, and environmental health. We are exploring more possibilities and scenarios of soundscape to create a better living environment and experiences," Xie said.