The project was started in May 2013 by art director of ESG-21 Andrey Popovsky and sound engineer Boris Shershenkov under the name of "Laboratory of electro-acoustic music" at the Experimental Sound Gallery (LEMESG).
The aim of the project was to give the opportunity for improvisational musicians to work with multi-channel systems and spatial sound in various versions of their creative rethinking such as multi-channel music, spatial acoustic improvisation, sound field modeling, sound and audiovisual performances. The technical base of the project was a wide-band eight-channel biquadrophonic sound amplification system. Boris Shershenkov became the curator of the concert program.
The manifesto of the basic LEMESG method was written by one of its first participants, Anton Mizenko:
00. Sound field scaling practice.
01. Microphones are placed at the key points of the resonator composition.
02. Electrodynamic loudspeakers are placed along the perimeter of the listener's space.
03. The layout of electrodynamic loudspeakers is similar to the layout of microphones.
04. Each microphone has its own electrodynamic loudspeaker.
05. Each electrodynamic loudspeaker creates individual sound field.
06. Combined fields of electrodynamic loudspeakers create the sound model of resonator composition.
07. The sound field of the resonator composition is reproduced on a 4:1 scale.
08. The sounding zone is separated by insulating screen.
09. The listener is inside the sound model of the resonator composition.
In total, 16 events took place within the Laboratory framework in the period of 2013-2014. Among them the performance and workshop of the Polish composer Dariusz Mazurovsky, the concert of the Canadian duo RUST, the audiovisual performance of the St. Petersburg formation "Coaxil", the spatial play of the chamber piece 5.1.1 by Yuri Akbalcan, as well as presentations of solo and joint projects of musicians Anton Mizenko, Andrei Popovsky, Vladimir Grig, Dmitry Shubin, Nikolai Rubanov, Igor Potsukaylo (Bardoseneticcube), Vladimir Luchansky, Denis Sorokin, Antonina Pozdnyakova, Alexander Marquart and others.
Since 2015, LEMESG has become part of the St. Petersburg Sound Museum, changes its name to the SEAL Laboratory of Spatial Electro-Acoustics and expands its activities. In addition to multi-channel audio performances and concerts of spatial electro-acoustic music, the Lab's new directions have become the archiving and representation of spatial sound landscapes (sound panoramas), as well as the reproduction of electronic compositions and the demonstration of multichannel sound installations by Russian and foreign sound artists.
SEAL presented the installations and live performances of various musicians and sound artists such as Sergei Filatov, Oleg Makarov, Anton Yakhontov (aka Patrick K.-H.), Andrei Bundin, Ilya Belorukov, Sergei Kostyrko and others.