Where?
Brunel University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH
More info

When?
Friday 22th June 2012

BEAM is a high-tech music weekender, a playground of homemade instruments and sonic installations, where you can listen to, watch and learn how to create your own physically living electronic music. BEAM was devised by Artistic Director Sarah Nicolls to explore the potential physicality of electronic music. The focus on electronic music being created LIVE is explored through a programme of performances, demonstrations, installations and workshops. BEAM brings together a global audience of artists, researchers, DiY electronics builders and enthusiasts, from beginners to veterans.

Where?
Ravensbourne, 6 Penrose Way Greenwich Peninsula London SE10 0EW
More info

More info on the festival:
We are organising the first ever Music Tech Fest in London on the 17-19 May, by pulling the entire music technology ecosystem under one roof – from the big guys in the music industry and media, music tech startups and apps creators, to developers, researchers, artists, performers, creatives and hackers.

The event has grown as lots of people seem to have discovered this new landscape. It is entirely non-profit – co-funded by our EU FP7 grant for MIReS: the roadmap for the future of music tech and Ravensbourne’s ERDF-funded Digital Media Innovation Consultancy and Business Incubator we are part of. We’ve been really lucky to have people chipping in with all sorts of contributions and now the whole thing is looking pretty exciting.

Some big music industry brands and personalities have confirmed participation, together with a great crowd from creative agencies – all of whom are into music and tech big time. We are running the whole thing as a ‘festival of ideas’ rather than a conference, with ‘synaesthesia workshops’ about music discovery and ‘seeing music’, mixing performances and presentations, demos, installations, as well as good old tinkering. We welcome experimentation and randomness and are running a 3-D Music Hack Camp and a musically-hacked light sabre party on the final night.

We are thinking and evolving on our feet here, adding names daily. Watch this space for the growing list of participants and press announcements by the founders of three pioneering music tech outfits.

Where?
Santa Cecilia conservatory, Sala Accademica, Rome

When?
Tuesday 8th May 2012, 21.00

When?

from April/10 to May/13, 2012, Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Where?

Oi Futuro, Rua Dois de Dezembro, 63, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro

When? Wednesday 4th April, 20:00
Where? Cafe Oto, 18 – 22 Ashwin street, Dalston London E8 3DL

More info about the event can be found on Cafe OTO and BEAM Night websites.

EDIT: A very nice review of the event by Marika Kochiashvili can be found here.

When? Saturday 10th March, 11:00-18:00
Where? Brunel University’s Artaud Performance Centre
How much? Free!
Who is it for? Students, families, electronic music enthusiasts & creators.

When:
11 January 2011, 14pm
Where:
University of Queen Mary, Centre for Digital Music (C4DM)
Electronic Engineer building (details)

What:
Presentation on: Gesture interaction design and expressive control of digital media

When:
10 october 2011, 12pm
Where:
University of Pompeu Fabra, Music Technology Group
Tànger Building – Communication Campus-Poblenou
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Roc Boronat, 138
08018 Barcelona

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When:
11 october 2011, 12pm
Where:
Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA)
Campus de la UAB,
E-08193 Bellaterra,
Catalonia (Spain)
MAP

What:
Presentation on: Gesture interaction design and expressive control of digital media

ABSTRACT
During the last three years, we studied various methods for computer-based gesture analysis, with the general goal of using body movements to interact with sound and visual media. We realised a system called Gesture Follower that allows for recognition and synchronisation of gestures with digital media.

This research has largely been influenced by sustained collaborations with musicians/composers and dancers/choreographers. I will present the technology and some of these works, including recent collaborations with the composer Lorenzo Pagliei and the violinist Mari Kimura.

Recently, I focused on the usability of these tools. I will present a brand new application called Gesture Interaction Design (GIDE), whose main purpose is to guide the artist in the creation and design of his own gesture vocabulary.

I will also introduce an application of this technology for gesture-driven audio/video mosaicing.

Workshop on “Realtime Gesture Recognition for Performing Arts”
Wednesday 7th September, 4pm.
Venue: the Sound Lab, Alison House, Department of Music.
Event link

Followed by a working session with Christos Michalakos/ and Lauren Hayes at the Reid Concert Hall.

The workshop is free. All the details are similar to previous sessions.

I’m pleased to invite you to a workshop on Realtime Gesture Recognition for Performing Arts.

The workshop will make you learn how to use a system called Gesture Follower, that allows for realtime gesture recognition to control sound or video in live performance.

After the workshop, you will get familiar with the followings:

- learning how to define your own gesture vocabulary

- understanding how to train yourself to get best result from the system

- using realtime gesture recognition as a tool to control audio and visual media

Although the system works with any device, Kinect and Wiimote will be used during the workshop.

Please refer to this page to see some works that used the Gesture Follower in the past.

Participants will be divided into groups of 3-4 people.

The workshop is divided into two sessions. The first session is a tutorial on how to use the system. During the second session, participants are invited to bring their own gesture and sound material to develop gesture recognition software for use in their own practice.

The first session of the workshop will last 2 hours and will take place possibly on the first half of August. The second one will take place during the last week of August, according to participants request. A doodle poll will be proposed in both cases.

Please, if you are interested contact me asap specifying your full name, university/centre, website, artistic field and your software environment (if you have any).

The workshop is free. Don’t hesitate to forward to whom it might concern.

Hope to see you soon,

Bruno

Visualizing taste

Press:
designweek
wired
psfk
thecreatorsproject
yeeyan
2oceansvibe
fellowgeek
barbizmag
dannyfinnegan
foodista
evocatus
neurogadget
theloungegroup
gizmodo
citylife
hillandknowlton

Online Gesture Analysis and Control of Audio Processing
2011 – Bevilacqua, F., Schnell, N., Rasamimanana, N., Zamborlin, B., & Guedy, F.
Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, Volume 74, Springer Verlag, 2011.
[read it]

Continuous realtime gesture following and recognition
2010 – Bevilacqua, F., Zamborlin, B., Sypniewski, A., Schnell, N., Guédy, F., & Rasamimanana, N.
Gesture in Embodied Communication and Human-Computer Interaction, 73–84. Springer. Retrieved January 28, 2011  
[download pdf]

Modular Musical Objects Towards Embodied Control Of Digital Music 
2010 – Rasamimanana, N., Schnell, N., Flety, E., Zamborlin, B., Stms, I. C., & Stavinsky, I.
Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (pp. 1-5).
[abstract]

Grainstick: A collaborative, interactive sound installation 
2010 – Leslie, G., Zamborlin, B., Jodlowski, P., & Schnell, N.
Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) June (Vol. 1, p. 5). Retrieved January 28, 2011, [download pdf]