Quantumscape

Quantumscape (2021) is a 12-minute acousmatic composition in third-order Ambisonics by Zhao Jiajing, made entirely from a single instrument: the Quantum Oscillator, a Max for Live device by Andrej Mladenović developed within the Beyond Quantum Music project. The instrument synthesises sound from the physics of the Bose-Einstein condensate, the state in which, close to absolute zero, a cloud of atoms collapses into one quantum state and behaves as a single wave. Following the work of Novković, Peljević and Malinović, it turns the acoustic phenomena of condensate experiments into audible spectra, controlled by order, frequency and number of harmonics.

The composition treats these spectra as a landscape: a sonic continuum between the quantum world and the macro world we inhabit, moving between the granular and the vast, the unstable and the resonant. Spatialisation over the full sphere carries the listener across that continuum rather than presenting it from outside.

Visual: Bryan Yueshen Wu