Rainforest Reverb 02; a massive immersive sound art experience created by seven composers from around the world.

The installation spans all five levels of a downtown Austin parking garage, transforming the structure into a vertical ecosystem of sound using a spatialized 32-channel audio system. Twenty-eight stationary speakers and four mobile speakers are positioned throughout the space while visitors freely wander the floors, encountering compositions inspired by the layered acoustic environment of an imagined rainforest canopy.

This distinctive parking garage features a central atrium built around two heritage oak trees that stand at the heart of the installation. Lower frequencies resonate through the lower levels while higher frequencies emerge above, reflecting how vertically adapted animals compete for sonic space in dense rainforest habitats. As sound moves through the garage’s open architecture, each listener experiences a continually shifting composition shaped by motion, reverberation and the ambient noise of the city. The result is a singular form of sonic immersion. Rainforest Reverb 02 returns to the wild acoustic density that has inspired human awe for eons, surrounding us once more with hypnotic organic and synthetic rhythms from horizontal and vertical soundscapes that command our primal attention and blur the boundaries between architecture, ecology, experimental music and our evolving senses.

COMPOSERS

Max Eilbacher
is a composer and sound artist whose work combines conceptual systems, performance, and psychophysical research. Known for his solo practice and as a member of the band Horse Lords, his projects explore the phenomenology of sound and hearing as an embodied experience.

Adam Fangsrud
is an audio engineer, musician and sound artist from Missoula MT. His work utilizes emergent processes and algorithms inspired by natural and living systems on the microscopic and macroscopic scale. He is an audio programmer at Muteki Games Collective and plays in the electropop duo Flatliner, as well as producing solo techno as Kro. He holds an MFA in Sound Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design where his thesis work involved evolutionary computing in sonic art.

Sonya Gonzales
is a sound artist from Austin, Texas. She’s a graduate of Goldsmiths University (London, UK) Master’s in Music – Sonic Arts program who also has degrees in Media Arts/English. She is currently the Managing Director of local non-profit, Church of the Friendly Ghost (Austin, TX) and also works as an Analyst at UT Austin.

As a sound artist, her work centers around ideas on improvisation and collage through various forms of media (video, radio, projections), utilizing different technologies. Fascinated with self-organization and assemblage, she uses sound to research interactions within generative systems mainly through Max MSP, Ableton and sensors. She also performs as PolyTrue creating live, improvised electronic pieces in various venues around Austin.

Lyman Hardy
is an Emmy nominated sound designer and musician living in Austin, TX. His work ranges from spatial sound installations, feature films and documentaries to modular synth compositions, drums and percussion. He is a founding member of Rolling Ryot sound collective, as well as Austin based post house Stuck On On. He currently plays in modern ambient post jazz ensemble soundcult, as well as the mutating minimalist classical ensemble Thor and Friends.

Joaquin Jimenez-Sauma
Joaquin is a music producer, lecturer and artist who combines sound, image, and computer science. Merges live interaction, generative music, sound design, data sonification, video and sound art techniques when composing, creating live performances, or building immersive installations.

He creates his own production methods and sound design techniques, merging creative technology and audio to produce glitch sounds, wall of sound textures, dub production techniqus, granular synthesis, and generative music. Internationally, has performed at festivals and events such as Bauhaus University in Germany, MUTEK and Sonar Festivals in Spain, Organica in Sweden, Fusebox Festival in the US, and others.

Currently he is a Senior Audio Specialist at Volvo Cars in Sweden, where he creates and analyzes the future sound of cars.

Augusto Meijer
is a Dutch composer specializing in electroacoustic music. After completing the European Media Master of Arts degree, he obtained his Master of Music degree from the Utrecht School of the Arts. Throughout his studies, he demonstrated a keen interest in electroacoustic music and several compositional techniques. His work has been featured at numerous global venues, such as the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, Ars Electronica, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, International Computer Music Conferences, Glow Eindhoven, ZKM, and many others. His continued collaboration with light artist Jaap van den Elzen has lead to various immersive installation projects presented in historic Dutch cities like Gouda, Utrecht, Middelburg. Recently, Meijer has build a career in network engineering holding professional certifications, and his creative work will continue to be showcased.

George Rahi
is a composer and sound artist based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. He works with speculative instruments and technologies as a method of exploring acoustic and digital anomalies, modes of listening, and spatial and architectural thinking. His work includes installations, instrument making, solo + ensemble performance, and works for radio, theatre & public spaces. Recent presentations include the Stavanger Concert Hall, Artificial Sonification exhibition (Matera), SPEKTRUM (Berlin), Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Cologne), Institute for New Music (Salzburg), and Orgelpark (Amsterdam). His work has been supported by awards such as the Canadian Music Centre’s Adaskin Prize, Lab30 Audience Award, Canada Council for the Arts Guest of Honour (Frankfurt), R. Murray Schafer Soundscape Award. He has been an artist in residence at Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), Bergen Centre for Electronic Art, and HCMA architecture..