ELECTRONIC VENTRILOQUISM IS ... THERE  

In the worlds of virtual reality, nothing is what it was. Consider your voice. You have been living with your voice all your life. You think you know it. You speak and the sound comes from your larynx.

Almost everyone matches a face with a voice. Sometimes the visuallyimpaired and radio personalities create an imaginary persona. Almost always, the imagined is different from the reality. The change may be startling.

When I speak, the voice you hear may not come from my lips but from the back of the auditorium, from inside the ceiling, the walls, the floor or from inside a drum!

Welcome to the unreal world of acoustical virtual reality. Electronic ventriloquism ... is there. Because of the minimum amount of equipment now necessary to create such cyberspace magic and the accompanying lower cost of sound equipment, this may be the first VR to hit the marketplace before the totally-encompassing world of full VR comes to Main Street. As with radio drama in the past, with Focal Point acoustic's the effect is evocative allowing the user to create their own visual images from their own fantasies.

As the "Marco Polo of VR" (another writer's words, not mine), I have been travelling through new cyberspaces during recent months. Earlier columns described the Parallel Universe in Calgary, Canada (where golfers -- or even duffers like me can play a course before it's built, or inspect a building before the first concrete is poured), and the Human Interface Technology Lab in Seattle (where VR adventurers can fly around the Space Needle without leaving the ground or dive into the sea without getting wet). I've even played on the very first virtual reality video game to arrive in North America. They was created by "W" Industries of Great Britain. I played at the sophisticated video arcade called "Quarters" in Kirkland, Washington. It is games like these that will be introducing all of us into the 21st century.

A young man named Bo Gehring, from Toronto via Los Angeles (where he created some of the stunning computer-generated graphics used in Arthur C. Clarke's movie 2010), is the creator of this startling new sound system. I recently visited his Toronto studio: "The Focal Point 3D Audio system takes any sound and processes it to generate signals for each ear. It's a cursor for the sound," he explained. "It's the same sound as before, but built into it is new information to make the brain think it's coming from a new direction".

Just as a computer cursor can be moved around, by keying in commands with a mouse or a Voice Navigator, Focal Point lets the performer, or whoever is directing the production, move sound around, over, under, in front of, inside or behind an audience. You have to experience it to believe it.

You are hooked. You have entered the cyberdelic playhouse. Imagine a sultry singer crooning a seductive ballad. He (or she) looks, then points directly at your head. The sound, both to the person selected as well as to the rest of the audience, comes from inside your head! Or a hip-throbbing dancer tosses their body in multiple directions. The sound bounces off the nearest wall in direct line with hip movements.

And, that's just the kindergarten class.

Ever since living with the voodooists in Haiti for two years trying to understand some of their "magic", I have been intrigued by their uncanny ability to use sound to make anyone in an audience react in ways beyond their control. The voodooists can actually cause a spectator to experience orgasm, with the powerful, hypnotic and physically manipulative sound from their drums.

One saying from the Industrial Age is that "Information is Power". Today that belief is widely accepted. Now, it becomes power in a new dimension: the ability to move sound so it appears to emanate from wherever the performer desires. Ventriloquists will be appearing on welfare rolls. For others, who learn how to dance with these acoustical electrons, a much brighter future is about to unfold.

Bo Gehring is one of many new Thomas Edisons who will emerge publicly in the next decade creating worlds never previously experienced.

Recently in Toronto while I was speaking to the Motorola World Convention. Bo Gehring and I introduced acoustic virtual reality to an audience of 1,000 sophisticated, cutting-edge individuals. They were particularly impressed as it was all made possible by the use of a Motorola 56001 microchip inside Bo Gehring's patented "white box"! One chip now allows man to create worlds of sound in a manner never even conceived previously. My voice, spoken in total darkness, appeared to originate from a dozen different locations. When the lights were turned up, the audience could see my power glove-encased hand directing the sound by merely pointing my finger in the desired direction.

A week later at the convention of MTA Financial Consultants, a group of sophisticated banking investment advisors, (again with inventor Bo Gehring on hand) I "flew" a helicopter (sound only) through a ballroom and fired two "on-board rockets". It certainly got their attention. I could have fired more than rockets.

This innovation has the potential to turn any home entertainment room with stereo speakers into a "virtual" stadium. Get in on this development while it's still in the excavation stage. It will be revolutionary.

More information: Bo Gehring, President, Focal Point, 189 Madison Ave., Toronto, Ont. M5R 2S6. Fax/Phone: 416/963-9188.

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