Seminar at the Department of Early Irish, Maynooth University
We're delighted to be talking about (and demonstrating) Augmented Vocality at the Department of Early Irish, Maynooth University, on the 20th of October at 5pm. Edmund Hunt, Mohamed El Idrissi, Joe Wright and Lamberto Coccioli will be present (online and in person) at the 2nd Floor Seminar Room, Iontas Building, [...]
Chord Convolver: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #3
Chord Convolver: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #3 As part of the Augmented Vocality project, we have been developing various tools to support Edmund Hunt’s compositonal workflow. The second of these tools - Chord Convolver - applies mathematical processes to two input-chords, generating a third, child-chord from the originals. [...]
Notes on Pronunciation of the Augmented Vocality Texts
Notes on Pronunciation of the Augmented Vocality Texts The question of how to pronounce medieval texts is a complex one, without a single correct answer. Like translating, reading texts aloud is itself an act of interpretation with contingent assumptions the about the nature of the audience and the relationship between [...]
Norse2DynamicFilter: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #2
Norse2DynamicFilter: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #2 As part of the Augmented Vocality project, we have been developing various tools to support Edmund Hunt’s compositonal workflow. Norse2DynamicFilter is the second of these tools, making use of Mohamed El Idrissi's Praat analyses of Norse words in the Augmented Vocality sample [...]
Partial Playground: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #1
Partial Playground: Augmented Vocality Composing Tools #1 As part of the Augmented Vocality project, we have been developing various tools to support Edmund Hunt's compositonal process. The first of these tools - Partial Playground - was developed in Max/MSP using IRCAM's [iana~] external, as well as the HISSTools Impulse Response [...]
Choosing Texts: A Composer’s Perspective
How does a creative project begin? What are the steps that will lead from an idea to its realisation? There are as many answers to this question as there are works of art, be they musical compositions, poems, staged productions, or digital media. In the case of Augmented Vocality, [...]
Different Islands
Different Islands by Edmund Hunt, for dancer, string quartet and live electronics, began as a project to investigate creative approaches to an Old English text known as ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’. By embedding the untranslated text within disparate elements of musical composition, dance and live electronics, the project seeks to explore [...]
Still Life
Still Life is a new work by Yixuan Zhao, realised in two separate versions. The piano solo version was commissioned by Spanish pianist Laura Farré Rozada, M4C Ph.D candidate at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and was officially released by Seed Music in January 2021, as part of Laura's album 'Nimbus', [...]
A-D-S-R
In recent months Matthew has been developing the installation A-D-S-R, an interactive haptic installation that explores how photographs—a medium which ordinarily only affect a single sense—can be turned into sound and haptic feedback via the use of a SUBPAC. After the loss of his father in April 2019, Matthew [...]
Riffs editorial
After having been guest editor of the July 2020 issue of Riffs, the journal of experimental writing on popular music, Edmund Hunt has been invited back for the December 2020 issue. In his editorial Edmund reflects on our ambivalence towards technology, especially at a time when we are all so dependent [...]
R e f l e c t
R e f l e c t is an interactive installation by Matthew DF Evans. The installation was exhibited throughout August at TouchBase Pears, a multi-purpose centre in Selly Oak, Birmingham. The installation was in collaboration with Sense UK, a charity for those living with complex disabilities and funded [...]
Connecting Sound and Image Workshops
Matthew has been delivering workshops over the year in collaboration with the Barbican and Vivid Projects. The Barbican workshop was the third workshop in the Life Rewired inspired Design Yourself project in which they explored using images of the Barbican to generate composition by turning pixel data into sound. [...]
Integra Lab Concert – 27th Feb 2019
Earlier this year, Integra Lab hosted a showcase performance in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's contemporary performance space, the Lab. The event featured works from our cohort of researchers, with an exciting mix electroacoustic and audiovisual systems being utilised in performance. The event is summarised below in four short pieces [...]
Early 2019 Releases from the Integra Team
Saxophone and Dynamic Feedback Solos Joe Wright This release documents the practical aspects of Joe Wright's research into accessible sonic play instruments. This work has involved the creation of a feedback system that disrupts conventional interactions with the saxophone, designed to strike a balance between control and chaos. Saxophone [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Matthew Evans
Integra Lab welcomes Matthew Evans. Matthew will be joining us as a PhD student creating sound and music from pixel data sonification. Matthew DF Evans is a Birmingham based sound artist and musician focused on making sound and music through data. Graduating from UAL (LCC) with a BA in [...]
Arduino Day 2018
On Saturday the 12th of May - as a part of Arduino Day 2018 - the Integra Lab hosted a day long event in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire foyer as part of the worldwide celebration of the Arduino community. Our community event was focused around introducing electronics to musicians. [...]
Integra Lab hosts Arduino Day 2018
The Integra Lab is proud to announce that on Saturday the 12th of May, in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's foyer, we will be hosting the Arduino Day 2018! Arduino Day is a worldwide birthday celebration of Arduino. It's a 24 hour-long event – organized directly by the community, or [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Edmund Hunt
Integra Lab welcomes Edmund Hunt. Edmund will be joining us as a Post-Doctoral researcher working with voice, language and live electronics. Edmund Hunt is a British composer. His work has been performed by ensembles including Psappha, The Royal Northern Sinfonia, CHROMA, BCMG, ICARUS Vocal Ensemble, The Curious Chamber Players and [...]
Integra Lab At ADC 2017
Earlier this month, we at the Integra Lab attended the Audio Developers Conference at the CodeNode, London. ADC began as the JUCE summit, a conference hosted by ROLI for users of the JUCE framework and audio developers to extend their knowledge on audio application development and software design. Over the [...]
Integra Lab at ICMC/EMW 2017
This year’s International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) was hosted at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in conjunction with Shanghai’s Electronic Music Week (EMW) festival. Balandino Di Donato and James Dooley from Integra Lab attended the conference to present a paper on the MyoSpat gesture-controlled audiovisual system. They were accompanied by [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Jefferson Bledsoe
Integra Lab welcomes Jefferson Bledsoe. Jefferson will be joining us as a research intern working across a range of projects including module development for Integra Live, investigation into possible uses of the Myo Armband for studio purposes using the JUCE framework, and research into new technologies for touch-free 3D interaction [...]
Performing at Audio Mostly 2017
Just back from a fantastic week in London attending the Audio Mostly conference held at Queen Mary University by the Centre for Digital Music. Audio Mostly is a conference which brings together musicians, sound designers, and technologists to discuss their latest understandings. This year the theme of the conference was Augmented and [...]
Music Interaction Design (MiXD) workshop
Just back from Berklee College of Music - Valencia, where I delivered a workshop focused on Music Interaction Design using Integra Live. The workshop was aimed exploring "traditional" MIDI and latest interactive gestural devices. We looked at their usability during musical performance, limitations and how these devices enhance expressivity and [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Joe Wright
Integra Lab welcomes Joe Wright. Joe will be joining us as a PhD student working across a range of projects including creating instruments with and for young people on the autistic spectrum. Joe is a professional jazz saxophone player, and uses his musical experience to inform his research. Joe has been a PhD student for the [...]
Integra Live workshop in Venice
At the beginning of May I had the privilege to lead a 3-day workshop at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice. Prof Paolo Zavagna, the coordinator of the New Technologies and Music Languages Department, kindly invited me to talk about research at the Integra Lab and to present the Integra [...]
MiXD 2017
As part of Frontiers festival at Birmingham Conservatoire, MiXD 2017 showcased a selection of works by MMus students interspersed with DJ sets from our own Richard Cornock. The audience was presented with a range of exciting performances exploring interactive live electronics and audiovisuals.
The Wood And The Water
After four months of hard work, the main outcome of the HarpCI project sees the light. The Wood And The Water for harp and electronics is composed by Eleanor Turner using MyoSpat. The performance explores principles of human-computer interaction in the field of musical performance. The performer, Eleanor Turner, elaborates the [...]
formuls at SONada and SPECTRA
formuls is the audiovisual performance environment created by James Dooley. Using bespoke software to manipulate and control generative algorithms, finely tuned noise and particle-based visuals are crafted during live performance. Throughout the improvised performance oscillating, kaleidoscopic soundscapes with responsive visual projections emerge and slowly evolve through time. A key [...]
Dancing with Sound and Light
Integra Lab is happy to announce a new project! James Dooley and Balandino Di Donato are currently collaborating with Sonia Sabri in an interactive audiovisual dance performance. Sonia Sabri has established an international reputation for presenting Kathak dance in a contemporary context. She creates work relevant to modern audiences, that [...]
Equinode II
Equinode II, an interactive audiovisual work by James Dooley and Balandino Di Donato, was commissioned by SPECTRA Festival Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur (22nd-23rd October, 2016). Fusing audio, visuals and physical gesture to create playful artworks where the quality of the interaction is central to the user experience, the Equinode series [...]
Fuga Perpetua
Tychonas Michailidis, a research assistant at Integra Lab, has been working the last few months on the realisation of the audio for the icon-sonic opera by Yuval Avital “Fuga Perpetua”. This work has been partially funded by the AHRC Cultural Engagement Fund The premier of the piece took place in [...]
Towards grabbing and throwing sounds away
Over the last year, I’ve been working on the development of an interactive audio spatialiser designed to move a vocal sound during musical performance. I tried to solve this problem by empowering the user to position the sound within an acoustic space through orienting the arm in that position (read more about it). It was [...]
Transforming Transformation: “conclusions and future work”
Our AHRC Digital Transformations project "Transforming Transformation" officially finished last week, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts about how the project went and what our future directions might be. The aim of the project was to initiate a new human-centred approach to sound transformation that departs from existing [...]
MiXD website now online
As part of the final phase of our AHRC Digital Transformations we're organising a national symposium on Music Interaction Design (MiXD). At the symposium we will present our own Transforming Transformation project, which will sit alongside other former AHRC Digital Transformations project as well as a range of talks and [...]
Glasgow School of Art showreel
Great to see our AHRC Digital Transformations project featured in our project partner Glasgow School of Art's digital showreel (at 23 seconds in).
Music Gesture Beatbox
Music Gesture Beatbox is a project born from a collaboration between Balandino and Grace Savage, who will be performing at MTFBerlin existing and new material using the outcome of Balandino Di Donato’s research on gestural control to manipulate lighting states, visual projection and sound FX via loop station and a dedicated [...]
MiXD videos now available
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-_CChlufc&list=PL7E6VwpzpQbn7-ueF8wFBN9Idnf-P8nF_ The videos from our MiXD symposium are now available via the following link. The symposium was huge success and featured a presentation of our final AHRC Digital Transformations system (Integra Forms) as well as our Transforming Transformation artistic commission alongside a range of other talks and demos including [...]
ICLI Paper accepted
Our paper titled 'Approaches to Visualising the Spatial Position of Sound-objects' has been accepted for publication as a paper and demo at the International Conference on Live Interfaces. The paper, brings together research conducted to-date as part of our AHRC-funded Transforming Transformation project, a collaboration with Glasgow School of Art's [...]
Porto International Conference on Musical Gestures as Creative Interfaces
Just back… well that’s hard to tell where from, because of the French strike which held me first in Porto and then Lisbon. Let’s say I’m back from Portugal. The reason why I flew to Porto is to present my PhD work at the first edition of the Porto International Conference [...]
esthesis: performance at MiXD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBRzhuQ3W5w As part of our AHRC Digital Transformations project "Transforming Transformation" we commissioned a new artistic work to explore the concept of transforming sound through touch-free interaction within a creative context. To say we are delighted with the results would be an understatement! esthesis, the new system and work by [...]
Exploring Live Sound Spatialisation Using Gestural Control
Hi Myo community, My name is Balandino Di Donato and I'm a PhD student at Integra Lab (BCU), where HCI (Human Computer Interaction), design and audio signal elaboration coexist to create new musical experiences. My work explores ways to map beatboxers' gestures into features to electronically transform beatboxing vocal sounds. [...]
EVA paper accepted
Our paper titled 'Approaches to Visualising the Spatial Position of Sound-objects' has been accepted for publication as a paper and demo at EVA London 2016. The paper, which draws heavily on research conducted as part of our AHRC-funded Transforming Transformation project explores ways in which sound spatial location and spatial [...]
MyoMapper stable release
After a long period spent testing MyoMapper 0.1, here is the stable release. Please DOWNLOAD it and let me know how it goes. Here you can find all info to get started with it. For any issue, please feel free to drop me a message. Thanks to all users who [...]
Keynote confirmed for MiXD symposium
In order to greatly extend the final workshop of our AHRC Digital Transformations project we've decided to host a national symposium on Music Interaction Design (MiXD). We're now delighted to announce that Jason Mesut has confirmed will be delivering the Keynote address. Jason is a professional user experience and interaction [...]
Transforming Transformation Experiment 4
https://vimeo.com/album/3830936/video/152990816 This is the fourth experiment in a 1-year AHRC Digital Transformations project run jointly between Birmingham Conservatoire’s Integra Lab and Glasgow School of Art’s Digital Design Studios. The project explores new ways of positioning sound in space using touch-free interaction. In this experiment we use the Microsoft Kinect [...]
Adding vibrotactile feedback
One of the findings from our first round of tests for the system we have developed for our AHRC Digital Transformations project "Transforming Transformation" is that users have difficulty precisely grabbing an object within a virtual 3D environment if they only have visual feedback to guide them. The final phase [...]
Artistic commission
We're pleased to announce that composer and sound artist James Dooley has accepted the artistic commission for our AHRC-funded Transforming Transformation project (working title "Integra Forms"). The aim of the project is to develop new ways of transforming sound through touch-free interaction. An important element of the project is an [...]
Initial test results
We have now completed the first round of testing on the system we've been developing for our AHRC Digital Transformations "Transforming Transformation" project. Full results will be available in due course through peer-reviewed publication, but in summary we conducted a system usability and user experience (UX) study involving 14 participants [...]
Transforming Transformation at Music Tech Fest
Today I demo'd the first prototype of our 3D Sound Transformation system at Music Tech Fest Central in Ljubljana. The system-in-progress, has been given the working title "Integra Forms" on account of our aim to enable sound to be transformed (or formed) in space as though it is an invisible [...]
Transforming Transformation experiment 3
https://vimeo.com/139458528 This is the third experiment in a 1-year AHRC Digital Transformations project run jointly between Birmingham Conservatoire’s Integra Lab and Glasgow School of Art’s Digital Design Studios. The project explores new ways of positioning sound in space using touch-free interaction. In this experiment we use the Microsoft Kinect [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Niccolò Granieri
Integra Lab welcomes Niccolo Granieri. Niccolò will be joining us as a research intern working across a range of projects including module development for Integra Live and research into new technologies for touch-free 3D interaction with virtual environments. Aa recent graduate of Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Tartini in Trieste, Niccolò [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Luiz Casteloes
Integra Lab welcomes Luiz Casteloes. Luiz will be joining us as a postdoc researcher working on developing educational apps based on contemporary compositional techniques such as microtonality, sound spectra analysis, and musical grammars. Brazilian composer, professor at Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (Brazil) since 2009, Luiz has a strong background in [...]
Transforming Transformation experiment 2
https://vimeo.com/138194406 This is the second experiment in a 1 year AHRC Digital Transformations project run jointly between Birmingham Conservatoire’s Integra Lab and Glasgow School of Art’s Digital Design Studios. The project explores the creative applications of 3D sound manipulation, specifically sound spatialisation. In this experiment we use the Microsoft [...]
Announcing the MiXD symposium
As part of our AHRC Digital Transformations project we were planning to present our final system (working title "Integra Forms") through a national public workshop hosted at Birmingham Conservatoire as part of the annual Frontiers Festival. However, since we have received significant interest from researchers interest in using the boundaries [...]
Equinode
https://vimeo.com/137622817 Equinode fuses interactive light projections and algorithmically generated music to create an immersive audience experience. n Visitors uncover streams of music and manipulate the spectrum of light by stepping onto the platform and finding a point of balance and equilibrium: an equinode. Sensors hidden in the platform detect the slightest [...]
equinode for Vagiti Ultimi Spoiler!
Just a quick spoiler about ‘equinode’, an interactive installation created for Vagiti Ultimi 2015, which will be running from 26th August until 14th September in Atri (Teramo, Italy). The installation has been realised by me, James Dooley and Guido Iommarini as members of the new born Star Node group. Our work has been [...]
Back to the future!
I'm going to travel soon for vacation and work, as every time I go somewhere. As the post's title suggests, I'm going to talk about something which happened few months ago, yet it projected my research work further. I have been in L'Aquila last June, where with Marco Giordano I put [...]
Making in Bham
I’m based in Birmingham since May 2013, and everyone around me makes things and stuff. Currently, they are building in every corner of the city centre, they do indoor and outdoor exhibitions, concerts, they read in parks (unless the library is open, see the picture…………………). So, few months ago I have decided [...]
Exploration of mixed reality using Integra Live and Myo armband.
A few months ago I posted a video (at the end of the page) about one of my experiments, yet I haven’t written anything about it so far. As summer is not always sunny and warm (in the UK), I’m now putting down everything I never wrote about. In an effort to define [...]
Visit at K-Array laboratories
Everything began when I first saw the following video regarding the K-Array KW8 speakers (aka Owl). https://youtu.be/VIHHcj4pU1c After I saw such video, I just wrote an e-mail to the K-Array team about my interest to use such technology in combination with gestural devices. They answered positively, and after a [...]
MyoMapper (beta version)
Just back from ICAD15, where students and researchers asked me about the system I've used to hack the Myo armband. When I just started to work with the Myo I've developed Myo2MIDI, which is a Myo connector able to convert Myo data into MIDI values. However this solution wasn't the best one, because [...]
Transforming Transformation experiment 1
https://vimeo.com/131588660 This is the initial experiment in a 1 year AHRC Digital Transformations project run jointly between Birmingham Conservatoire’s Integra Lab and Glasgow School of Art’s Digital Design Studios. The project will explore the creative applications of 3D sound manipulation, specifically sound spatialisation. In this first experiment a basic [...]
Designing a human-centred system for sound transformation
At its core our AHRC Digital Transformations project "Transforming Transformation" has a simple aim: to instigate a new way of transforming sound that radically improves on existing approaches. The current state of the art If a music producer or sound designer wants to transform a sound, for example by applying [...]
CUK Research students forum
Here is the presentation of my research at CUK Research Students’ Forum 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWyAS4B3IUo
Highlights from NIME 2015
The New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference (or NIME) is a conference that started out as a workshop at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in 2001. It’s an international conference, with approximately 250–500 attendees annually and one of the bigger music technology / computer music conferences. [...]
Fully articulated hand tracking with Kinect 2
This video from MicroSoft Research shows some of the hand-tracking capabilities of the Kinect. Shame this functionality isn't yet in the public SDK as it would've been highly relevant to our project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-xXrMpOHyc
Choosing technologies and frameworks
Choosing technologies and frameworks is an important early stage of any digital research project. Basing a project on the wrong tech can cost time and money, make systems harder to support, prohibit certain types of use, diminish user experience or result in early obsolescence. However, there is rarely (if ever) [...]
AHRC Digital Transformations project begins
We are delighted to announce the beginning of our AHRC-funded Digital Transformations project, titled "Transforming Transformation: 3D Models for Interactive Sound Design". This will be a 12-month collaboration with Glasgow School of Art's Digital Design studios, world leaders in digital interaction and visualisation and commercial partners TwoBigEars, experts in developing [...]
Integra Lab welcomes Balandino Di Donato
Integra Lab welcomes Balandino Di Donato. Balandino will be joining us as a PhD student, working on live sound spatialisation using gestural control. As recent graduate of Conservatorio di musica Alfredo Casella in l'Aquila, Balandino focused for his graduation on Metis, a Tangible User Interface, and various other systems. Balandino will be with the Integra [...]
Incorporating-haptic-feedback-into-musical-instrument-performance
The London based company Precision Microdrives mention my work on their blog. I’ve been using their motors in my work with vibrotactile feedback. Really impressed how they encapsulate the essence of my work in a few lines “The harder you strum a guitar, the more you feel it vibrate. Similarly, kick a [...]