Riversynth is both an immersive performance and musical interface that mixes live hydrophone streams from six river systems with live processing through a gestural controlled water instrument. Building on a decade of research from the River Listening project, Riversynth creates an entangled performance ecosystem where unpredictable aquatic soundscapes become both the source material and score for a live performance.
The interface consists of a transparent tank filled with water and embedded sensors that detect water movement and light. These parameters modulate, filter and mix the live hydrophone streams via the performer's hands in the water, creating a dynamic relationship between the real-time river soundscapes and the performer's physical manipulation of water.
The technical implementation combines custom-designed sensors, a low-latency streaming network, and a granular synthesis performance tool for live manipulation of the hydrophone streams in surround sound. The interface enables intuitive control while maintaining complexity in the sonic output, allowing for both composed sections and improvisatory responses to the unpredictability of live streams.
Research Background The creative practice of mixing live-streamed soundscapes for musical performance has a long history (Busechian 2020). Drawing on Auslander’s (2008) notion of immediacy in live technologically mediated performance, this practice embraces the inherent risk and uncertainty involved in mixing globally distributed live audio streams, extending the tradition of aleatoric composition (Cage 1961) into performance. Practitioners of this genre have largely inherited the traditions of electroacoustic diffusion (Vargas & Sefchovich 2023) with a mixing desk as the primary performance interface. This research asked: how can we create a performance interface for mixing live-streamed soundscapes that reflects the unpredictable nature of the source material? Research Contribution Riversynth is both an immersive audiovisual performance and musical interface that mixes live hydrophone streams from six river systems through a gestural controlled water instrument. The interface consists of a transparent tank filled with water and embedded sensors that detect water movement and light. These parameters modulate, filter and mix the live hydrophone streams via the performer's hands in the water, creating a dynamic relationship between the real-time river soundscapes and the performer's physical manipulation of water. The technical implementation combines custom-designed sensors and a granular synthesis performance tool for live manipulation of the hydrophone. The interface enables intuitive control while maintaining complexity in the sonic output, allowing for both composed sections and improvisatory responses to the unpredictability of live streams. Research Significance This work was selected by international jury (3 blind peer reviews plus meta-review) for performance at NIME2025, the leading international research symposium for experimental musical interfaces, with delegates from 12 countries. Riversynth was selected as the feature performance for the opening concert.