Exciting news from our secret headquarters at Bela: we've launched Bela Gem, the biggest hardware update to Bela in 10 years. Quad-core processor, high-spec audio, new IDE and more! The campaign will go live on CrowdSupply soon; subscribe at the link for more: https://www.crowdsupply.com/bela/bela-gem-stereo-and-multi

Starting shortly: an Augmented Instruments Lab Open Seminar by Maxime Popoff on FPGA audio systems. Live streaming here: https://www.youtube.com/live/3XWCVmF5Ow4

Call for late breaking work at the OHMI Conference on music and disability (Birmingham, UK, 15-16 March). Submit an abstract here by 5 March: https://forms.office.com/e/fnu6M2HWTp

Meanwhile, the programme for the rest of the conference is published: https://www.ohmirp.org.uk/ohmiconference.html

PhD opportunity: I'm recruiting a PhD student in digital musical instrument design at Imperial College London. Applications now, start date in the autumn. Funding is limited to UK home students. More topic details to follow. Interested? Email me with a CV! andrew.mcpherson@imperial.ac.uk

OHMI Conference on Music & Physical Disability -- 15-16 March in Birmingham, UK. OHMI is a charity I work with which helps develop and promote accessible musical instruments. Should be a great event! Early bird registration closes Friday: https://www.ohmirp.org.uk/ohmiconference.html

Twitter account --> deleted. So long, Elon. Sad to part ways with >10 years of Augmented Instruments Lab history, but time to start building a better Nazi-free future. Future lab updates here, on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/apmcpherson.bsky.social) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/augmentedinstrumentslab/).

Just out! New ToCHI paper with @courtneyreed, Adan Benito and Franco Caspe: "Shifting Ambiguity, Collapsing Indeterminacy: Designing with Data as Baradian Apparatus". Open access: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689043

We're organising the Embedding Algorithms Workshop at Universität der Künste Berlin - Berlin Open Lab on Friday, 26th July 2024, 10:00-18:00. Very excited about the programme, the event is free and open to anyone.

https://www.federicovisi.com/embedding-algorithms-workshop/

Deadline extended to 12 July!

The lab is hiring a postdoc! This is a 2-year position, Research Associate in Digital Musical Instrument Design, based at Imperial College London. The role focuses on the hardware and software foundations of new musical instruments. Apply by 7 July: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jobs/description/index.php?jobId=19359&jobTitle=Research+Associate+in+Digital+Musical+Instrument+Design

Join us at 11am London time on Friday for the next AIL Open Seminar, featuring Zeynep Bulut from the Sonic Arts Research Centre at QUB presenting "Sustainable Speech: Experimental Music and Sensory Technologies for Post-Stroke Aphasia". Details and live-stream link: http://instrumentslab.org/news/2024/06/17/seminar-series-005.html

The lab is hiring a postdoc! This is a 2-year position, Research Associate in Digital Musical Instrument Design, based at Imperial College London. The role focuses on the hardware and software foundations of new musical instruments. Apply by 7 July: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jobs/description/index.php?jobId=19359&jobTitle=Research+Associate+in+Digital+Musical+Instrument+Design

UK folks!

Please register to vote: https://https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Unless you apply for a postal vote, you'll need the right kind of ID ready: https://https://www.gov.uk/how-to-vote/photo-id-youll-need

More info: https://www.gov.uk/how-to-vote

An exciting MRP project gets its first listen tomorrow at the Cannes Festival. I worked with the amazing composer Jon Brion who used the MRP on the score of the French film "L'Amour Ouf" (Beating Hearts). Premieres tomorrow though most of us have to wait until October to hear it.

More details below. Thanks also to Instruments Lab member Lewis Wolstanholme for setting up and running the MRP over several weeks in the studio.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/253473/imperials-magnetic-resonator-piano-strikes-chord/

The OHMI Trust, a UK-based charity that supports musical instrument design and provision for people with physical disabilities, is recruiting staff and trustees.

I've worked with OHMI for over a decade and have been a trustee for the past few years. It's a great team of people doing amazing work. Worth a look for anyone interested in accessibility and music: https://www.ohmi.org.uk/blog/want-to-join-ohmi-take-a-look-at-two-special-opportunities

PDFs:

Entangling Entanglement: a Diffractive Dialogue on HCI and Musical Interactions -- http://instrumentslab.org/data/andrew/morrison_chi2024.pdf

Thinking with Sound: Exploring the Experience of Listening to an Ultrasonic Art Installation -- http://instrumentslab.org/data/andrew/robson_chi2024.pdf

Both papers are presented at this online session: https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2024/program/session/156383

The lab has two Honourable Mention papers at #CHI2024, both exploring theory and practice of entanglement HCI.

"Entangling Entanglement: a Diffractive Dialogue on HCI and Musical Interactions", by Landon Morrison and me, is a theoretical deep dive on post-human HCI in conversation with music studies.

"Thinking with Sound: Exploring the Experience of Listening to an Ultrasonic Art Installation" by Nicole Robson, @nickbknickbk explores the experience of spatial sound using micro-phenomenology.

I'm happy to be able to join @cfrauenberger tomorrow for an online talk at the CHIME network around entanglement HCI and musical instrument design. Starts at 2pm London time (3pm CEST). Details here: https://www.chime.ac.uk/chime-seminar-christopher-frauenberger-and-andrew-mcpherson

On Wednesday 7 February at 5:30pm UK time, I'm giving my inaugural lecture at Imperial College London. I'll talk about my research designing digital musical instruments, how I got into it, and why building instruments is an important thing to do.

It's free and hybrid (in person / online); booking needed here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-technology-to-make-music-tickets-793038759277?aff=oddtdtcreator

On Wednesday 7 February at 5:30pm UK time, I'm giving my inaugural lecture at Imperial College London. I'll talk about my research designing digital musical instruments, how I got into it, and why building instruments is an important thing to do.

It's free and hybrid (in person / online); booking needed here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-technology-to-make-music-tickets-793038759277?aff=oddtdtcreator