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“Voice Theatre” is a large-scale interactive light installation initially designed for Augusta Raurica, a Roman archeological site in Switzerland. In the piece, the voices of participants are converted into concentric rings of light that emanate outwards, up the stands or steps of the ancient theatre. The installation emphasizes the shape of the Roman theatre, as sound travels radially along the cavea, or enclosure. The piece creates a memory theatre of live and recorded messages that can be both seen and heard.

Voice Theatre consists of a series of powerful LED-light battens, arranged in rings, which are pointed to better illuminate the architectural features of the theatre. The lights are always glimmering but vary in intensity to reflect the volume of each recording; silence manifests as a blackout, while whispers are dim sequences, and brighter pulses correspond to louder peaks of light.

A microphone, centered within the theatre proscenium and at the edge of the orchestra, records audience participation. As people speak into the microphone, the computers digitize, analyze, and record their voices in real time. The voices are automatically converted into pulses of light, dispersed along all the rings in the theatre. The “waves” of sound are created according to a Fourier analysis of frequency and volume, creating patterns that never repeat themselves and that represent the variations between individual participants.

Once the voices radiate out from the theatre, rings composed of 120 loudspeakers, distributed along the cavea, playback the voice messages. When someone is speaking, all the speakers will playback their voice simultaneously. When no one is speaking, the loudspeakers will play the recordings of the past 120 participants.