AuralTech is an innovative startup with the aim of developing immersive experiences to access the cultural heritage. The mission of AuralTech is to provide better access to archaeological sites, museums and exhibitions using new visual and aural immersive technologies. The core activity of AuralTech is immersive audio, which involves using recording techniques and playback methods that reproduce the sensation of hearing sounds from anywhere in the space around the listener through headphones or multi-loudspeakers systems. AuralTech has designed and implemented immersive experiences for museums and exhibitions using Virtual Reality headsets, interactive electronic devices, and music program languages. AuralTech can also provide professional consultation in the field of acoustics for the design of new acoustics spaces, using a technique called auralization which reproduces the sound field of a virtual model, or the correction of the acoustics of existing halls, as well as interventions to mitigate noise pollution in urban environments. Founded in 2017, AuralTech received the ""PIN – Pugliesi Innovativi"" funding with the project ArcheoEchi: a virtual and acoustical reconstruction of the medieval cathedral of Montecorvino (Foggia, Italy) in virtual reality and binaural audio. To guarantee the highest level of scientific accuracy, AuralTech received scientific support from the Department of Humanities of the University of Foggia (IT) and the AudioLab of the University of York (UK). ArcheoEchi is a VR documentary that recreates the atmosphere of the ancient medieval cathedral of Montecorvino. Thanks to advanced immersive technologies, its graphic layout was reconstructed as well as its acoustics, allowing users to undertake a multisensorial time travel. This makes ArcheoEchi one of the first virtual archeoacoustics projects ever implemented for the general audience. Between 2019 and 2021, ArcheoEchi was presented at several international conferences, such as “Audio in Advanced Digital Age” at the CIRMMT - Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media and Technology of Montreal (CA); at the 149th conference of the Audio Engineering Society with a paper “ArcheoEchi – a virtual reconstruction of a medieval cathedral in Southern Italy”; “Music and the Brain” at the CCRMA – Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in Stanford (US), and “Stupore al Museo” at the Civic Museum of Foggia (IT). Between 2018 and 2021, we worked on several projects for exhibitions and museums, such as an immersive concert of electronic music at Dialoghi di Trani (IT), an interactive art installation for the exhibition “How to Secure a Country” of Salvatore Vitale at the “Fotostiftung Schweiz” in Winterhurt (Zurich, CH), and “Listen to the Theatre”: a VR experience implemented to study the relationship between the space and the acoustics of the Teatro del Maggio Fiorentino in Florence using immersive audio-video recordings. Auraltech adapted the experience in an application for Oculus Go headsets, with which users can freely move between three points of the theater during a performance of the orchestra. “Listen to the Theatre” has been presented at the Ircam Forum of Montréal (QC) in February 2021 and at the MEET Digital Cultural Centre of Milan (IT) in January 2023. In 2023 AuralTech will be working on the acoustical reconstruction of the church of Santa Maria of Siponto (Foggia, IT) that hosts an artistic work of the Italian artist Eduardo Tresoldi.
AuralTech team is composed by Gianluca Grazioli (BEng in Electronic Engineering, MSc in Music Technology, Ph.D. student in Sound Recording at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montréal), Marco Maruotti (Archaeologist, Ph.D.) e Giulio D’Amelio (Archaeologist, 3D modeler)."