ZHAO JIAJING
赵嘉旌
Spatial Music Compositions 空间音乐作曲
Installations & Multimedia 装置与多媒体
Project Credits 项目经历
Information 艺术家信息
ZHAO JIAJING
Spatial Music Compositions 空间音乐作曲
Installations & Multimedia 装置与多媒体
Project Credits 项目经历
Information 艺术家信息
2026
16-channel
12’09”
Omniopticon is a 16-channel electroacoustic composition that explores the spatial model of participatory surveillance.
The concept of the omniopticon (or omniopticism) describes a modern state of mutual surveillance where “the many monitor the many”. The attention economy and social media platforms drive this new reality: traditional top-down power is deconstructed, and surveillance becomes a flat, decentralised network. Users constantly share and consume information online, creating a vast web of peer-to-peer monitoring. In this digital landscape, physical boundaries disappear, and continuous interaction defines the space instead. Every individual acts simultaneously as both the observer and the observed, the hearer and the heard.
Omniopticon translates this invisible digital architecture into a spatio-sonic environment. The work deliberately uses sound to build this space. Contemporary surveillance is no longer unidirectional, symbolised by a single camera pointing at a target; instead, it is an omnidirectional, diffused field. Sound naturally possesses these exact qualities: it travels in all directions, passes through obstacles, and wraps around the listener. The work strips away fixed spatial music arrangements; it is composed for flexible multichannel distribution, without specific needs for orientation, angle, or location. The composition draws upon a collection of sound materials symbolising data sharing, extraction, and consumption: camera noises, electromagnetic recordings, notification tones, applause, and so on.
The piece is composed and designed for flexible, interactive performances. Omniopticon’s first presentation is on 16 fully mobile, wireless “Snappi” loudspeakers, as a participatory installation. Visitors are actively invited to pick up, carry, and reposition the speakers. Every time a participant moves a sound source, they execute a real-time spatial diffusion, and this spatio-sonic behaviour directly mimics the dynamic flow of online information and digital sightlines. Ultimately, Omniopticon is performed collectively, allowing participants to physically experience both the empowering agency and the inescapable tension of a shared, hyper-connected world.
Performance:
- 2026: International Computer Music Conference, Hamburg, DE
Journal