Elia Römpler - Portfolio

übertön

ÜBERTÖN

# installation

# audio reactive

Description

Übertön is an audio-visual installation that merges sound and light into a single physical object. It is made up of two giant custom-made foam panel speakers that span a combined area of over 1.3 m², on which real-time audio visualisations are projected. The diffuse sound profile paired with live visuals makes for a unique experience that makes the music feel more tangible.

In Detail

The concept for this project was to create an audio safe space that allows people to shut off from their routine day and offer a listening experience that really pulls you in, drowning out the noisiness and stress of your day (/[ger]:über·tön > to outsound smth/).

This idea was developed while delving into research on the psychology of music listening. I was intrigued by its influence on our minds and feelings, and aimed to create an environment that takes the music centre stage, giving it the most potential for its power.

A key factor in this was to enhance the listening through expanding the sensory experience by creating different real-time audio-reactive visuals that match the tone of the played music. This draws the attention of the viewer directly to the source of sound, while also keeping them intrigued with the audiovisual synchronisation they can directly observe on the speaker's surface.

Giving the music a visual character felt especially crucial for this project, since nowadays music often slips into the background, while we´re busy following our daily lives. Übertön claims back a spot just for music.

This back-claiming is also happening quite literally through the sonic profile of the flat panel speaker. They don´t only excel in their super clear mid-range frequencies, but furthermore have a unique diffuse, room-filling sound profile that takes up the full room with its soundwaves.

wdtw

# installation

# audio reactive

Description

For the WDTW25 Afterparty, I got commissioned to be a VJ to support the DJ lineup visually. Working together with peers from my university, we created multiple distinct audio-reactive visuals for each DJ. The work that you can see here was my contribution to the project.

In Detail

WDTW (We Design The World) is an annual event of NHL Stenden, celebrating its creative studies with a week full of interesting lectures, workshops, expos, and a big afterparty to connect different creative fields within the university

Our team of 3 students, including me, was responsible for VJing for this event. None of us had prior experience in this, but we were all familiar with the basics of TouchDesigner, so we settled on using that program over something like Resolume, which is usually the more common choice.

Even though TouchDesigner is not specifically made for VJing, it has the advantage of its real-time rendering, meaning we can make actual live audio-reactive visuals, instead of adjusting prerendered video clips during the live performance. For our project, that means most of the work takes place ahead of the event, creating node setups that match the music that will be played, and only doing small adjustments during the sets themselves.

Giving the music a visual character felt especially crucial for this project, since nowadays music often slips into the background, while we´re busy following our daily lives. Übertön claims back a spot just for music.

So to be able to create these fitting networks for the visuals, we got in contact with each DJ, asking for concrete setlists to base our moodboards on. Each DJ was playing a different type of genre, starting with light house beats and moving all the way to hard techno over the course of the night.

My part in the project was not only to create two of the main visuals for the last two DJs, but more importantly, to create a project setup, allowing us to even VJ inside TouchDesigner, since, as already mentioned, the program is not specifically made for that. That meant I built an in-depth audio-analysis tool that could be used to instance each individual visual, but furthermore drove the whole project by acting as a main controller over each DJ's multiple visuals, switching between them, and inserting (also audio-reactive) title cards with the name of the event.

giftedness

GIFTEDNESS

Description

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis posuere condimentum tellus eget tristique.

Nacht in Contrast

NACHT IN CONTRAST

Description

This video was part of the "Wakker worden!" (translating to "wake up!") exhibition for the Natuurmuseum Fryslan, going on from the 8th of February 2025 until the 28th of September 2025. In this sleep-themed exhibition, multiple teams of students were commissioned to contribute their own works to it, my team and me decided to create a video for it, centered around the effects of blue light on our sleeping rhythm. I was involved in the projects from concepting and storyboarding with the whole team, all the way til the end when reviewing all our iterations of cuts, but my main work on this project was to contribute by planning, directing the video shoot, as well as being the main DOP.

3d audio spectrum