Cyborg Soloists: Advancing Interdisciplinary Music in the Post-Internet Age Through New Musician-Technology Interactions.
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: Music
Abstract
The project will achieve these objectives by addressing the following research questions:
- How can Interdisciplinary Music be advanced beyond its current practice by collaborating with leading technological
innovators?
- How can recent developments in electronics instruments, motion sensors, AI, virtual reality, web design and interactive animation and other technological innovations be used by creative musicians in new ways to create ambitious new work?
- How can musicians utilise specialist technological expertise in achieving more ambitious uses of film, analogue synthesisers and other existing technologies?
- Can these technological innovations be applied to other arts and other industries?
Cyborg Soloists will address these questions by creating a Centre for R&D in Interdisciplinary Music at Royal Holloway. The
Centre will combine the resources of the Music, Media Arts, Drama, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science
departments. Internationally renowned musicians and technological innovators will be invited to create work that expands
the field of interdisciplinary music that will then be toured to major international festivals and venues. The hub will host
residencies for visiting artists, giving these bespoke teams the time and resources to tackle the technical and artistic
challenges limiting the expansion of the field. The applicant will lead the projects, mentor the collaborators, and be one of
the primary artists in most of the projects. Ethnographic documentation of the projects will be used to research the creative
processes leading to new insights into musician-technology interactions. And the new and adapted technologies will have
wide applications across musical genres, other performing arts, as well as having wider applications in human-computer
interactions.
By creating research teams between musicians and technological innovators, a range of ambitious, innovative new projects
will be explored, focused on the following topic areas:
Extending the Body
Creating cyborg musicians through the use of motion sensors, 3D motion capture, and brainwave scanning tech.
Remaking the Old
Repurposed analogue technologies, expanding the possibilities of analogue synthesisers, and of common analogue
technologies such as tape machines and turntables
Film-Body interaction
Compositions featuring live video interaction with the performer, using new films featuring performers and composers, and
re-editing existing films
Hyperinstruments
Creating new musical instruments that extend existing ones with electronics. These would range from expansions of new
digital instruments (such as Air Sticks), new surface-based sensors, instruments featuring in-built sensors, and new
acoustic instruments using 3D-printing technology
AI and new types of interaction with computers
Artificial Intelligence to develop computerised co-performers (acting as chamber musicians) and create new types of visual
interaction.
Music with Virtual Reality
Virtual reality to create musical works that expand on RHUL's StoryFutures project and Jonathan Packam's VR scores.
Music using the Internet and Mobile Technologies
Exploring the use of mobile phones for audience interaction, as well as website-based crowdsourced compositions
Hybrid Installation Works
Long form performances and works created for art spaces, facilitating new types of audience interaction.
Staged Hybrid Works
Inviting directors and theatre practitioners to create major works with composers and performers, featuring the
technological innovations developed.
Research Outputs from the project will including the 25 compositions, at least 10 new technological innovations developed with industry partners, performance tours by the applicant and invited collaborators, 12 journal articles, 12 conference papers, new software and hardware, 2 conferences, 2 festivals, and an edited book
about new directions in interdisciplinary music.
- How can Interdisciplinary Music be advanced beyond its current practice by collaborating with leading technological
innovators?
- How can recent developments in electronics instruments, motion sensors, AI, virtual reality, web design and interactive animation and other technological innovations be used by creative musicians in new ways to create ambitious new work?
- How can musicians utilise specialist technological expertise in achieving more ambitious uses of film, analogue synthesisers and other existing technologies?
- Can these technological innovations be applied to other arts and other industries?
Cyborg Soloists will address these questions by creating a Centre for R&D in Interdisciplinary Music at Royal Holloway. The
Centre will combine the resources of the Music, Media Arts, Drama, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science
departments. Internationally renowned musicians and technological innovators will be invited to create work that expands
the field of interdisciplinary music that will then be toured to major international festivals and venues. The hub will host
residencies for visiting artists, giving these bespoke teams the time and resources to tackle the technical and artistic
challenges limiting the expansion of the field. The applicant will lead the projects, mentor the collaborators, and be one of
the primary artists in most of the projects. Ethnographic documentation of the projects will be used to research the creative
processes leading to new insights into musician-technology interactions. And the new and adapted technologies will have
wide applications across musical genres, other performing arts, as well as having wider applications in human-computer
interactions.
By creating research teams between musicians and technological innovators, a range of ambitious, innovative new projects
will be explored, focused on the following topic areas:
Extending the Body
Creating cyborg musicians through the use of motion sensors, 3D motion capture, and brainwave scanning tech.
Remaking the Old
Repurposed analogue technologies, expanding the possibilities of analogue synthesisers, and of common analogue
technologies such as tape machines and turntables
Film-Body interaction
Compositions featuring live video interaction with the performer, using new films featuring performers and composers, and
re-editing existing films
Hyperinstruments
Creating new musical instruments that extend existing ones with electronics. These would range from expansions of new
digital instruments (such as Air Sticks), new surface-based sensors, instruments featuring in-built sensors, and new
acoustic instruments using 3D-printing technology
AI and new types of interaction with computers
Artificial Intelligence to develop computerised co-performers (acting as chamber musicians) and create new types of visual
interaction.
Music with Virtual Reality
Virtual reality to create musical works that expand on RHUL's StoryFutures project and Jonathan Packam's VR scores.
Music using the Internet and Mobile Technologies
Exploring the use of mobile phones for audience interaction, as well as website-based crowdsourced compositions
Hybrid Installation Works
Long form performances and works created for art spaces, facilitating new types of audience interaction.
Staged Hybrid Works
Inviting directors and theatre practitioners to create major works with composers and performers, featuring the
technological innovations developed.
Research Outputs from the project will including the 25 compositions, at least 10 new technological innovations developed with industry partners, performance tours by the applicant and invited collaborators, 12 journal articles, 12 conference papers, new software and hardware, 2 conferences, 2 festivals, and an edited book
about new directions in interdisciplinary music.
Planned Impact
The music industry currently contributes £4.5 billion per annum to the UK economy, with creative and technical innovation crucial to the UK's international standing. With changes to immigration (including Brexit) encouraging a drain of talent to other countries in Europe, the US, Canada, and Australasia, it is a particularly crucial time for investment in musical innovation, both in new approaches to musical creativity, and new music-related technologies, to maintain this international competitiveness. In addition, the Digital Economy has been identified by UKRI as a key theme, "supporting research to rapidly realise the transformational impact of digital technologies on aspects of community life, cultural experiences, future society, and the economy" with content creation and consumption as a key component. The project addresses this theme by exploring many different uses of digital technologies in the performing arts, with applications to the UK's cultural life, as well as to the broader creative industries, and to medical and therapeutic uses.
This project's artistic and technological innovations will contribute to the music industry and the Digital Economy. New approaches to interdisciplinary music and the technologies used, will influence the cross-media innovations of musicians across the industry, from traditional orchestras using multimedia to develop new types of interaction with audiences to pop, electronic dance and hip hop musicians who will have new tools for integrating their bodies into musical creation and interaction, to new online VR platforms at film festivals, looking to explore immersive audio-visual experiences for audiences. These innovations will reach a wide variety of audiences through being featured in tours to multiple international music festivals, professional concert films released online, 2 major festivals at RHUL, media articles and a documentary about the works.
The technological innovations, including new extensions to instruments, sensors, and software for new types of audio-visual interaction, will have applications to artists across the sector, from musicians performing popular electronic dance music, to choreographers and theatre directors exploring connections between movement and media interaction. The will also have wider applications to music education (through new motion-based interaction and creativity tools) and to medical and therapeutic applications from motion-based music-therapy to greater accessibility to a variety of apps using surface-based sensors. To advance the research and impact aims, the industry partners will need to demonstrate new developments and applications as a result of the collaborations, as a condition of their participation.
This project's artistic and technological innovations will contribute to the music industry and the Digital Economy. New approaches to interdisciplinary music and the technologies used, will influence the cross-media innovations of musicians across the industry, from traditional orchestras using multimedia to develop new types of interaction with audiences to pop, electronic dance and hip hop musicians who will have new tools for integrating their bodies into musical creation and interaction, to new online VR platforms at film festivals, looking to explore immersive audio-visual experiences for audiences. These innovations will reach a wide variety of audiences through being featured in tours to multiple international music festivals, professional concert films released online, 2 major festivals at RHUL, media articles and a documentary about the works.
The technological innovations, including new extensions to instruments, sensors, and software for new types of audio-visual interaction, will have applications to artists across the sector, from musicians performing popular electronic dance music, to choreographers and theatre directors exploring connections between movement and media interaction. The will also have wider applications to music education (through new motion-based interaction and creativity tools) and to medical and therapeutic applications from motion-based music-therapy to greater accessibility to a variety of apps using surface-based sensors. To advance the research and impact aims, the industry partners will need to demonstrate new developments and applications as a result of the collaborations, as a condition of their participation.
Organisations
- Royal Holloway University of London (Fellow, Lead Research Organisation)
- ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC (Collaboration)
- PLUX - Wireless Biosignals (Collaboration)
- QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON (Collaboration)
- ROLI (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX (Collaboration)
- Austella (Project Partner)
- Touch Keys (Project Partner)
- Gestrument (Project Partner)
- AirSticks (Project Partner)
- Encap Neuroscience (Project Partner)
- mi.mu Gloves Limited (Project Partner)
- PLUX - Wireless Biosignals (Portugal) (Project Partner)
- Eemagine (Project Partner)
- Mogees Limited (Project Partner)
- Roli (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Soundbrenner (Project Partner)
- Nescivi Sense/Stage (Project Partner)
Publications
Dyer M
(2023)
The Role of Smart, Haptic Wearables in the Performance of Mensura
in Contemporary Music Review
Dyer M
(2022)
Neural Synthesis as a Methodology for Art-Anthropology in Contemporary Music
in Organised Sound
Dyer M
(2023)
In Conversation with Jennifer Walshe: Performing with Intelligent Machines
in Contemporary Music Review
Dyer M
(2023)
The Performer as Posthuman Assemblage: Performer-Machine Interactions in Contemporary Music
in Contemporary Music Review
Dyer M
(2023)
Scribe: Machine Learning, Parafiction and the Perversion of Practice
in Leonardo
Fryberger A
(2022)
@Newmusic #Soundart: Contemporary Music in the Age of Social Media
in Contemporary Music Review
| Title | Aeolian Fantasy by Ben Jameson and Harry Matthews (with Zubin Kanga and Mark Dyer) |
| Description | This is one of the early career artist collaborations (from winners of our Call for Proposals) being mentored by Zubin Kanga and Mark Dyer. The new work features software from industry partner, Vochlea. They create a digital aeolian harp as they feed Vochlea's audio-to-MIDI software Dubler 2 with prerecorded and live wind sounds. Beautiful and uncanny microtonal harmonies fill the space from small speakers, augmented by live performance on acoustic guitar and synthesisers. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The project demonstrates how early career artists can be mentored and trained in the use of innovative software, and their new work also demonstrates new uses of the Dubler 2 software (using field recordings) outside of its usual use case which will be fed back to the industry partner. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/f52e8a8368cb5c926042 |
| Title | Answer Machine Tape 1987, co-created by Philip Venables, Ted Huffman and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This is a major (50-minute) full-concert work that utilises an experimental KeyScanner, created by the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, to turn the piano into a hybrid instrument. This MIDI-scanner sits above the keys, using optical scanning to convert the velocities to MIDI data. This data was then translated to print out text onto the screen, like a typewriter. The work explores the 1980s AIDS crisis through a turbulent period in the life of New York artist David Wojnarowicz leading up to the death of his close friend, fellow artist, and former lover Peter Hujar. Using the KeyScanner to transcribe messages from Wojnarowicz's answering machine tape, in a work that reflects on this devastating period in queer history. This was premiered at Time of Music Festival (Finland) was performed at November Music (Netherlands), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Paris Autumn Festival in Autumn 2022. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work was performed to audiences totalling over 1000 across 4 countries. It is the first significant work using the KeyScanner, demonstrating its viability, and impacting on the Augmented Instruments Laboratory, who altered their prototype in response to my feedback to them. It is one of few concert works that discusses the AIDS crisis and its effect on the arts. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/65163c2a2475e7047b60 |
| Title | Bad Infinity by Ben Nobuto and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This work shows the integration of voice, TouchKeys instrument and a sampler keyboard to create a coherent rhythmic whole. It is influenced by online culture and in particular gifs. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates a novel use of TouchKeys in combination with the voice to create a combined 'cyborg' instrument. It will be premiered in April 2023, with further impacts expected after this. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/38bd318109fad668b1cb |
| Title | Car-Pig by Alex Paxton and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This is a virtuosic 9-minute work, demonstrating new approaches to the use of sampler keyboards. It layers dozens of sounds (from synths, to animal noises, to choirs, to bagpipes) in dense samples of different lengths, across two sampler keyboards as well as a LUMI keyboard (allowing for pitching bending of the samples). |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work has been recorded for a commercial release on the nonclassical label and will be launched in April 2023. Further impacts are expected from the work after this time. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/43b204a642ed667df63d |
| Title | Concert film of A meditation on unnatural corporeality in three tableaux by Lola de la Mata and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Concert film of A meditation on unnatural corporeality in three tableaux by Lola de la Mata and Zubin Kanga Performed by Zubin Kanga, with Antonio Branco and Ricardo T Recorded live at Submerge Festival, Manchester (RNCM), 18 March 2022 |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The video is being used to pitch the project to festivals and venues around the UK. |
| URL | https://youtu.be/UCgznNjj_9Y |
| Title | Concert film of Hypnagogia (after Bach) |
| Description | Hypnagogia (after Bach) by Zubin Kanga Performed by Zubin Kanga Recorded live at Submerge Festival, RNCM (Manchester), 18 March 2022 |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The video has received 120 views online |
| URL | https://youtu.be/3lmGtmoULLY |
| Title | Concert film of Whatever Weighs You Down by Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Whatever Weighs You Down Composed by Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga Performed by Zubin Kanga Featuring Chisato Minamimura Recorded live at Gaudeamus Festival, Utrecht Videography by Flora Reznik Audio Recording by Jorrit van Rijn |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The video has received 40 views and is being used to pitch the project to international festivals. |
| URL | https://youtu.be/6f6kL30Q3iE |
| Title | Cyborg Soloists: Hidden Vortices - Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Description | Public performance at Royal Holloway, University of London on 9 March 2022. Featured the world premieres of: Full and Hollow by Joanna Ward, using Sam Underwood's new remote robotic piano mechanism, allowing the piano to be played remotely using solenoid powered hammers and magnetic resonators. Escape TERF Island by CHAINES, using ROLI devices (LUMI keyboards and lightpads) hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel, using Soundbrenner metronomes to syncronise the pianist with electronic sound, video and strobe lights. It also featured performances of Steel on Bone by Zubin Kanga (featuring MiMU motion sensor gloves) and a performance of Mark Dyer's Mensura by the student ensemble, the New Music Collective. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Audience of 60. The concert introduced the project to staff, students and local audience of the host organisation, showcasing a selection of the new works and collaborations with industry partners. The performance with students of Mark Dyer's work introduced students to this collaboration with an industry partner, and showcased the educational opportunities for students as part of the project. |
| URL | https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-teaching/departments-and-schools/music/events/cyborg-so... |
| Title | Do you share coming out stories still? by Robert Reid Allan |
| Description | Do you share coming out stories still? by Robert Reid Allan is a work for TouchKeys (project partner) keyboard, live electronics and live video. It uses the TouchKeys keyboard to bend the pitch of the Ableton samples. It also uses a Max Patch which plays excerpts from an interview in response to particular chords. The interview itself is with an older mentor about being a gay man in the 1970s. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | 'Do you tell coming out stories still?' showcases the capabilities of TouchKeys to bend pitch and play vibrato on a keyboard instrument, as well as the use of Max/MSP to control live video from the keyboard. The work models these aspects for future works, both within Cyborg Soloists and beyond the project's scope. A custom Max patch created for this composition will enable other composers to implement Reid Allan's model in other works using this technology. The work will be premiered at a queer-themed festival on 18 March, SUBMERGE, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and the patch will be made available for download from the Cyborg Soloists website shortly after the premiere." |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Do-you-share-coming-out-stories-still |
| Title | Early Hours by Zubin Kanga |
| Description | After Hours is a synthesizer work by Zubin Kanga using 12 layered synths lines (created with a Korg Prologue) |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work shows how layered synthesizers can be used outside of popular music genres, allowing for a type of counterpoint and blending similar to a chamber orchestra. The work was released as a recording on Goliard Recordings. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/c0590579d61273450e13 |
| Title | Escape TERF Island by CHAINES (Cee Haines) |
| Description | Escape TERF Island by CHAINES (Cee Haines) is a solo work using ROLI devices (LUMI keyboards and touchpads). The work utilises MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) to allow the keyboardist to bend and transform the sound using touch sensors. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work was premiered at Royal Holloway on 9 March, and is being featured as part of a queer-themed festival in Manchester, SUBMERGE, on 18 March, as part of Zubin Kanga's performance: Cyborg Soloists: The Body Electric, and will be featured in major touring performances as well as an album release in 2022-2023. CHAINES' Ableton session provides a model for future collaborations using the ROLI devices, as well as any other devices that use MIDI Polyphonic Expression via a Digital Audio Workstation. It shows its usage across a variety of sounds, and with a variety of sonic manipulations (from bending in pitch, to timbral changes to the sound and its sustain). The session has been made available as a download from Github and will be made available on the website after the Submerge Festival performance. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Escape-TERF-Island |
| Title | FAKE |
| Description | FAKE for piano and live electronics by Fergal Dowling. This work uses the AnteScofo software developed at IRCAM, that facilitates precise score-following by the computer. Dowling uses this to create games of cause and effect between the 'fake' (electronic) and real piano. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The work was premiered at Music Current Festival in Dublin, 8 November 2021. It showcases a modernist approach to the AnteScofo software, pushing it far beyond the accompaniment and educational applications it was built for. It forms a model for future uses of not just AnteScofo but all score-following software, allowing much more precise interaction with a live musician than conventional audio triggers. |
| Title | Fourfold by Kathryn Williams, Ed Cooper (with Zubin Kanga and Mark Dyer) |
| Description | This is one of two works by Early Career Artists, who are being mentored by Zubin Kanga and Mark Dyer. They have collaboratively created a new work featuring industry partner Soundbrenner's haptic metronomes. Using Soundbrenner's vibrating metronomes and their own heartbeats, the duo weave a dreamy soundscape with alto flute, electric guitar and fixed media. Active listening combines with performance and spoken word, constructing an augmented, bodily instrument. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The collaboration demonstrates how early career artists can learn and create new works using technology from industry partners, as well as innovating new approaches to these technologies. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/168e36614e409588cb35 |
| Title | From the Exquisite Dark - by Caitlin Rowley and Josh Spear |
| Description | A collaboratively composed piece by Caitlin Rowley and Josh Spear, for solo percussionist, objects and live electronics, created for percussionist Yuka Ohta of Ensemble Garage. Making use of the Bela Mini nanocomputer's extremely low-latency audio response and tiny physical footprint which allows it to be easily hidden from view during performance, From the Exquisite Dark explores a shift from the real to the simulated. Starting with the percussionist playing a length of chain, glass bottles, sandpaper and a metal container filled with nails and screws, the percussionist transitions to 'playing' four toys, while the sounds she produces remain the same. Using contact microphones to trigger playback of prerecorded samples of the 'real' sounding objects when the toys were activated (handled, struck, switched on), technology in this piece enables uncanny illusion and prompts us to question the 'real' in performance. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The technical solution for the piece resulted in the first iteration of a hardware/software device called the Exquisite Engine - developing what was needed for this piece has created a tool which can be adapted by others to create work which uses similar sonic illusions. Performance by Yuka Ohta, during Ensemble Garage's "Visitors" event with Bastard Assignments, Alte Feuerwache Köln, Cologne, Germany, 19 August 2022. This performance was attended by approximately 30 people. |
| URL | http://caitlinrowley.com/music/from-the-exquisite-dark/ |
| Title | Hammerklavier |
| Description | Hammerklavier by Michael Finnissy and Adam de la Cour. This work is the first major solo work by celebrated British composer Michael Finnissy using film as part of the performance. The film by Adam de la Cour is in counterpoint to the music. Both are related to an experience of Finnissy seeing the great pianist Sviatoslav Richter performing Beethoven at the Royal Festival Hall in 1975, and the later revelations that Richter was gay. The work explores queer artistry and interpretation through the interaction between a live instrument and visual media. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The work was premiered to a sold-out audience at the Royal Academy of Music, London, on 28 January 2022. The work was the subject of a long-form article by David Grundy in ArtForum, writing: "this is a queer music that puts minds and ears on edge, a bruising and exhilarating torrent of thought and feeling, quicksilver and dense, transparent and thick; a space not for the reinforcements of canons, traditions, and prejudices, but for a sustained questioning of what it means to listen at all." https://www.artforum.com/music/immortal-homosexual-poets-michael-finnissy-s-hammerklavier-87866 artforum.com's has 2.3 million users across the world, averaging 7 million page views per day (https://www.artforum.com/advertise). A performance film of the event was created and is being edited for release in April 2022. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/13d45da237ae8a7908cc |
| Title | Hammerklavier by Michael Finnissy and Adam de la Cour |
| Description | Hammerklavier by Michael Finnissy and Adam de la Cour - world premiere at Royal Academy of Music, London on 28 January 2022. This was the premiere of a new work featuring piano and film, created by one of the UK's leading composers, Michael Finnissy, with filmmaker Adam de la Cour. The work explores Michael's memories of pianist Sviatoslav Richter playing Beethoven, as well as exploring queer interpretation and artistry. The work uses experimental film techniques, combining the piano and film in a contrapuntal, audio-visual 42 minute epic. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Sell-out audience of 85 at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Audience feedback included: "truly inspiring", "one Michael's best works" A performance film of the event was created and is being edited for release and dissemination via our YouTube, social media and website channels. The Q&A allowed for deeper discussion of the collaboration between composer and filmmaker, and how the experimental approaches to music can find a corollary in film. It also discussed the history of queer representation in music and film, and the importance of celebrating queer artists from other eras. |
| URL | https://tickets.ram.ac.uk/sales/categories/friday-series/hammerklavier |
| Title | I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) by Nwando Ebizie and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | The work explores Zubin Kanga's physical relationship to the piano and piano technique (in particular, the pianistic tradition originating with Frederic Chopin), combining interview materials and AI-generated speech with a Moog synthesizer and complex Afrofuturist electronic textures. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates the use of AI-generated text and speech into a concert work. It also shows audiences how Afrofuturist influences can be used to create a 'classical' notated work. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/729bb8232aa68870bee3 |
| Title | Interiterations by Amble Skuse and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Wearing MiMU gloves, the performers' gestures are tracked, and the computer provides audio responses to the gestures. The performer beings to learn 'where' in space the sounds are located and starts to respond, learning what gestures elicit what sounds, bringing us to a point where machine and human are controlling each other. The flow between the human and the computer in this work becomes interdependent. We ask ourselves how deeply we are intwined with technology, how our movements, gestures, decisions and thoughts are influenced by unknown algorithms, which in turn have been trained upon our thoughts, decisions, language and actions. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This work demonstrates how the practice of a disabled artist using a digital instrument can be integrated into a work for a non-disabled artist. Skuse's practice is informed by her movement disabilities, around which she has developed a sophisticated approach to using MiMU gloves. This also connects with other uses of MiMU gloves with disabled artists (including Whatever Weighs You Down) |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Interiterations |
| Title | Mensura - CoMA Manchester and CoMA Sheffield, Music in the Round |
| Description | Public performance at Channing Hall, Sheffield, as part of Music in the Round concert 'SOUNDS OF NOW: Contemporary Music for All,' 8 October 2022. This involved a collaboration between CoMA Manchester and CoMA Sheffield - two ensembles dedicated to making contemporary music accessible to everyone. The piece utilises the Soundbrenner Pulse wearable metronomes. The performance served as a public demonstration of Mark's collaboration with industry partner Soundbrenner and artistic partner CoMA Manchester, an amateur music ensemble for whom the piece was written. As such, the performance demonstrates the possibilities of the Soundbrenner devices outside of the professional music setting they are primarily deigned for. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This performance demonstrated how providing context for a newly created work utilising novel digital technologies can improve impact for performers - before the performance I gave a talk about the piece to both performers and audience, describing how the Soundbrenner devices work, as well as my creative processes and stimuli for writing the work. Touching on both early music and technology, the impact was demonstrated in a comment by a performer, who declared that this extra context revealed new insights into the work and that this new knowledge changed how she performed it. As the second performance of Mensura by CoMA Manchester, two of the nine musicians performing the piece had performed it previously. Their prior experience and increasing understanding of the work and the technology, and confidence with the devices meant that they were able to play an active role in supporting the new performers. This teaching within the group shows that an aspect of the impact of the work has been to increase confidence with these new technologies across the group and to equip them with the resources (personal skills and the ability to communicate those skills to inexperienced members of the group) to work with Soundbrenner metronomes in future with little trouble as several members now have considerable experience with how they work. The mixed audience (c. 12-15 members) comprised musicians, students, the general public and family and friends outside of music. These non-musicians would likely not normally see such devices in use, and as the devices are not common yet, not all the musicians in the audience had experience with them either, so this performance's impact included providing exposure to both a new technology and an unusual way of using that technology to these audience members. |
| URL | https://musicintheround.co.uk/events/sounds-of-now-contemporary-music-for-all/ |
| Title | Mensura - CoMA Manchester, Festival of Contemporary Music for All 2022 |
| Description | Premiere performance of 'Mensura' by CoMA Manchester as part of the Festival of Contemporary Music for All 2022. The performance served as a public demonstration of Mark's collaboration with industry partner Soundbrenner and artistic partner CoMA Manchester, an amateur music ensemble for whom the piece was written. As such, the performance demonstrates the possibilities of the Soundbrenner devices outside of the professional music setting they are primarily deigned for. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Audience responses after this performance demonstrated the impact of the new technology in this piece to create perceivable relationships between music and the human body for spectating audiences - one audience comment after the performance was that the piece had made the audience member think differently about how heartrates might relate to music. The performance enabled an audience of around 20 people, including non-musicians who would not normally see such devices in use, to experience them in performance for the first time. Musicians and students in the audience, who may have been aware of the Soundbrenner haptic metronome device, were exposed to an innovative use of the technology through this performance, a mode of use which is very different from those they may have encountered either through their own experience of these devices, or through the company's own marketing messaging. Four amateur musicians performed Mensura on this occasion, which gave them the opportunity to work with technology they would not normally have had access to. Two of these performers also performed in a subsequent performance of Mensura, where their experience in this performance impacted on the whole performing group as they were able to assist new performers with setting up and performing with the technology. |
| URL | http://www.coma.org/whats-on/events/festival/manchester/manchester-evening-concert/ |
| Title | Mensura by Mark Dyer |
| Description | Mensura explores two separate research aspects. The first, building upon Mark Dyer's earlier doctoral research, relates to his compositional practice of musical borrowing and asks, how can novel digital technologies be used to engage both explicitly and metaphorically with music from much earlier periods? In the instance of Mensura, physical gesture is used to relate the Soundbrenner haptic metronome to late medieval performance practices and repertoire. The second aspect relates to ensemble interaction and networking. In its distribution of the Soundbrenner metronomes amongst the ensemble, Mensura creates intimate relationships between performers and their biological rhythms and explores whether such interactions might induce group coordination or disorder. Such an exploration builds upon research in both musical networks and performer-technology entanglements. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The primary impact of this work is introducing novel digital technologies, namely the Soundbrenner haptic metronome, to amateur music-makers. The work was written for and with CoMA Manchester, an ensemble dedicated to making contemporary music accessible to all abilities, and their experiences with the technology informed the final work. The work is specifically written to be understood and accessed by those that might not normally encounter such technologies. Members of the ensemble commented that working on the piece developed their own awareness of their bodies and bodily rhythms in performance, with one performer describing the 'flow' she found between her heart rate, the vibrating device and other performers. The issue of accessibility is pertinent to music technologies as a result of costs and programming expertise. Members commented that, due to their amateur status, the ensemble simply wouldn't normally have access to such technologies, especially numerous devices. Given such access, the ensemble were able to create a sonic, visual and atmospheric spectacle in the premiere. The ensemble director commented that this was a unique experience for the ensemble. |
| Title | Metamemory |
| Description | Metamemory is a dialogue between real and artificial music memories. It features a sampler loaded with AI-generated audio, produced by a neural network trained on recordings I've made of works across the pianistic canon, including music by Berg, Messiaen, Debussy, Ravel, Takemitsu, and many others. The AI-sampler, playing these monstrous but strangely beautiful AI-created transformations, is combined with a Korg Prologue synthesizer that both articulates and comments on these scrambled and synthesized memories of the canon. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | This work demonstrates the use of AI-generated audio within a keyboard sampler, a new combination that points towards future uses of AI and its integration with current music technologies. It is featured on a commercial release by Nonclassical which will be launched in April 2023. Further impacts are expected after the premiere. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/409b20d65b39d5467cd4 |
| Title | Morrow by Robin Haigh and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Morrow uses a TouchKeys keyboard to allow piano samples to be manipulated, using a patch that maps movement across the keys to speed and dynamics. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work innovates new ways of using the TouchKeys hardware to go beyond the basic functionality around pitch bending. It demonstrates to other composers how to use TouchKeys (as well as MPE in general) to control musical functions beyond the basic timbral and pitch controls, allowing for more sophisticated hybrid instruments to be created. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/097396476b09d7666e7d |
| Title | Music Current Festival, Dublin |
| Description | Music Current Festival, 8 November 2021. Zubin Kanga gave a premiere performance of FAKE by Fergal Dowling featuring AnteScofo score-following software, a new piece by Nicole Lizée for piano, electronics and video, featuring piano and video and a short version of 'Hammerklavier' by Michael Finnissy and Adam de la Cour. The programme also contained Alexander Schubert's WIKI-PIANO.NET featuring this internet crowd-sourced work and Scott McLaughlin's in the unknown there is already the script for transcendence, featuring the use of custom-built magnetic resonators in the piano |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | This was the first Cyborg Soloists event (and the PI's first event) in Ireland, reaching a local audiences as well as international visitors to the festival (including distinguished American composer, and pioneer of new interdisciplinary music, Steven Takasugi). The audience in the room numbered 50 people. There was a feature review in the Journal of Music by Ann Murray, who said: "For Kanga, electronics are clearly not an addition, but a fundamental part of working with his instrument, and the physicality of his performance a keystone rather than an afterthought. This programme saw him performing complex musical textures, bending over the piano strings armed with e-bows, speaking, and performing physical actions like pretending to sleep and clanking a spade. Ann Murray, Journal of Music https://journalofmusic.com/reviews/electric-performance The Journal of Music has an annual readership of 330,000 |
| URL | http://www.musiccurrent.ie/2021/zubin_kanga.html |
| Title | Performance at Cafe Oto, London |
| Description | Performance of Whatever Weighs You Down, a 40-minute work by Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga, at Cafe Oto, London. This work features MiMU gloves, two video screens, electronics, interdisciplinary elements, and an onscreen performance by Deaf performance artist, Chisato Minamimura. Also on the programme were new Cyborg Soloists works, featuring motion sensors, AI-generated audio and video, and an analogue synthesizer Nina Whiteman - Cybird Cybird - Nwando Ebizie - I Will Fix Myself (Just Circles) (World Premiere) - Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This performance for 120 people in London introduced the major collaboration with Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga to the audience, showcasing the use of MiMU gloves in a collaboration with a Deaf artist. An audience member who had previously been unaware of the MiMU glove technology used in this performance indicated that the experience of the concert had changed the way they considered technology in musical performance, responding "It sparked interest in the nexus between diverse technologies, in particular film, poetry & multiple strands of sound playing off each other" |
| URL | https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/zubin-kanga-neil-luck-whatever-weighs-you-down/ |
| Title | Performance at City, University of London |
| Description | Performance of a programme of Cyborg Soloists works, showcasing a wide range of technologies to an audience in London. Programme: Robert Reid Allan, Do you still share coming out stories still? (2022) Joanna Ward, Full and Hollow (2022) Georgia Rodgers, Ringinglow (2021) Zubin Kanga, Steel on Bone (2021) Louis d'Heudieres, Reflects dans Sequana (world premiere) Luke Nickel, hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (2022) |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | An audience of 50 people experienced a wide range of technologies, including motion sensors, a hybrid robotic piano, keyboard sampler, AI-generated sound and video and haptic metronomes. Audience surveys were also collected, and the responses indicated that audience members' thinking changed as a result of the concert. The survey question 'How did the concert change how you think about the use of technology in musical performance?' yielded responses including "Hugely! Beyond anything I've seen with piano" and "I often had mechanical input producing signal for the speakers and raw data to be interpreted by a musician, but I never appreciated the possibilities of mechanical movement as output.". When asked what surprised them in the concert, one respondent answered "Almost everything", indicating that the experience for them was extremely novel and changed their thinking. |
| URL | https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2022/march/zubin-kanga |
| Title | Performance at Classical NEXT, Hannover |
| Description | Showcase performance at Classical NEXT, a major conference for the classical music industry. Alexander Schubert - WIKI-PIANO.NET Zubin Kanga - Steel on Bone Nicole Lizée - Scorsese Etudes |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for an international audience of 200 delegates, at the closing ceremony - showcasing Cyborg Soloists innovations to the classical music industry. |
| URL | https://www.classicalnext.com/net/piranha_arts_1/event/zubin_kanga_1 |
| Title | Performance at Free Range (Canterbury) |
| Description | Performance at the main contemporary music series in Canterbury, featuring Cyborg Soloists works. Zubin Kanga, Steel on Bone (2021) Louis d'Heudieres, Reflects dans Sequana (world premiere) Alwynne Pritchard, Heart of Glass (2019/2022) Luke Nickel, hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (2022) |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for an audience of 100, with many families with children attending, allowing them to see gesture sensors, keyboard samplers, haptic metronomes and AI-generated audio/video up close. |
| URL | https://freerangecanterbury.org/fr227-zubin-kanga-hidden-vortices/ |
| Title | Performance at Jesus College, Oxford |
| Description | Performance at Jesus College, Oxford on 10 March 2023, featuring Cyborg Soloists work. Programme: Luke Nickel - hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess Alex Groves - Single Form (Swell) Zubin Kanga - Hypnagogia (after Bach) Alexander Schubert - WIKI-PIANO.NET |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | There was extended engagement with the audience after the concert, including with 7 composition students and two organ students, as well as discussions with the Principal of the College and staff from the Music Department. 10 other members of the general public also discussed how they had experienced all the technologies and their use in music for the first time, and the instruments were further demonstrated to them. There was particular interest in the MiMU gloves, and the ROLI keyboards, with students discussing how they function and the possibility of using them in their own works. |
| URL | https://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/tag/recital/ |
| Title | Performance at Kettle's Yard (Cambridge) |
| Description | A performance of Cyborg Soloists solo works, including those by Christopher Fox, Luke Nickel, Georgia Rodgers, Louis D'Heudieres and Zubin Kanga. Christopher Fox's The Wind in the Trees (featuring a video generated through algorithmic processes on nature scenes) received its world premiere. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | These works, featuring analogue synthesizers, AI-generated audio.video, gestures sensors and keyboard samplers was performed for an audience of 120. |
| URL | https://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/events/zubin-kanga-piano-and-keyboards/ |
| Title | Performance at Kontraklang, Berlin |
| Description | Performance at Kontraklang, Berlin, (held at Kultur Büro Elisabeth: Villa Elisabeth) on 3 December 2021. Programme featured: Pretty Sound (Up and Down) by Simon Steen-Andersen, featuring new microphone techniques and custom-built playing tools inside the piano Steel on Bone by Zubin Kanga, featuring manipulation of the inside piano sound using MiMU motion sensor gloves. You touched the twinkle on the helix of my ear by Claudia Molitor, featuring close interaction with the composer's hands on screen. WIKI-PIANO.NET by Alexander Schubert - the Berlin premiere of this internet-based score. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Audience of 100 in Berlin. Many leading musicians and festival directors in attendance. Matthias Osterwold, influential German artistic director of new music festivals including MaerzMusik and Klangspuren Schwaz, in the audience stated "you bring a very human touch to the technology, making it accessible to the audience" A performance film of the event was created, and is being edited for release at the end of March. |
| URL | https://kontraklang.de/concert/physical-sounds/?fbclid=IwAR2SvBhqk0dt2HCUvT-OS3KuuEvUclIwBj9M5UhBKRu... |
| Title | Performance at Music in the Round (Sheffield) |
| Description | Performance at Music in the Round, a concert series in Sheffield, featuring Cyborg Soloists works. Included the premieres of works by Nina Whiteman and Alex Groves NINA WHITEMAN cybird cybird (world premiere) ALEX GROVES Single Form (Swell) (world premiere) ZUBIN KANGA Steel on Bone LUKE NICKEL hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess ALEXANDER SCHUBERT WIKI-PIANO.NET |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | An audience of 100 attended the event. There were notable impacts on the audience (who experienced a variety of new interactions between AI, new digital instruments, internet-based scores and motion sensors with music) and on the venue and their curation (in the featuring of this type of interdisciplinary work with technologies for the first time in their series). |
| URL | https://musicintheround.co.uk/events/sounds-of-now-cyborg-soloist/ |
| Title | Performance by Zubin Kanga at Submerge Festival, Manchester |
| Description | Performance at Submerge Festival, Manchester Featuring new works exploring queer themes, and featuring a variety of new technologies including: TouchKeys, LUMI keyboards, MiMU gloves, Movesense sensors, Holonic Systems app, Soundbrenner haptic metronomes and AI-generated audio and video. Robert Reid Allan - Do you share coming out stories still? (World Premiere) Alwynne Pritchard - Heart of Glass (2019) CHAINES - Escape TERF Island (World Premiere) Zubin Kanga - Hypnagogia (World Premiere) Lola da la Mata - A meditation on unnatural corporeality in three tableaux (World Premiere) Luke Nickel - hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess (World Premiere) |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | 120 people attended the concert, with lots of live engagement (videos and photos posted online) by audience members, as well as discussion and demonstration of the technologies after the concert, including the MiMU gloves, TouchKeys keyboard and LUMI keyboards. |
| URL | https://submerge.me/festival/programme/cyborg-soloists/ |
| Title | Performance for Digital Planet live broadcast (BBC World Service) |
| Description | A performance of WIKI-PIANO.NET and interview for the 21st birthday event celebrating the BBC World Service show Digital Planet. The event at Broadcasting House, London, included an audience of 400, and a potential worldwide audience of 1.2 million listeners |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Brought Cyborg Soloists' work to a large live London audience, as well as a very large online and radio audience on the BBC World Service of 1.2 million. This worldwide audience was introduced to the innovative research of Cyborg Soloists, focusing on the possibilities of internet-based scores. 30 audience members contributed to the internet score, WIKI-PIANO.NET, which was then performed in the event. 70% of the audience members who responded to our audience survey, gave warm responses about work. Their responses included comments on the unusual nature of the audience being able to contribute to the score of the piece, and the inclusive approach to composition that this feature of the work represents: "Inclusive, in the widest sense of the word. Innovative, unusual.", "Inspiring and enabling" (audience responses from survey). |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct31yv |
| Title | Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival |
| Description | Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at hcmf//, the UK's largest contemporary music festival. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for 170 people. The work showcased the Keyscanner, as well as giving the audience insights into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, through the eyes of artist David Wojnarowicz. After the performance, an impromptu demonstration of the KeyScanner was given for around 10 audience members, who expressed an interest in getting a closer view of the device. This enabled them to learn more about the technology and how it was used in this work. |
| URL | https://hcmf.co.uk/programme/answer-machine-tape-1987/ |
| Title | Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at November Music, Netherlands |
| Description | Performance of this major work at November Music in Den Bosch, Netherlands. This is one of the two largest contemporary music festivals in the Netherlands. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for 100 people. The work showcased the Keyscanner, as well as giving the audience insights into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, through the eyes of artist David Wojnarowicz |
| URL | https://www.novembermusic.net/programma/zubin-kanga-philip-venables-130144 |
| Title | Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at Paris Autumn Festival |
| Description | Performance of this major work at one of the largest festivals in France |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for 500 people, introducing this audience to the Keyscanner and its use to turn the piano into a hybrid instrument, as well as giving the audience insights into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, through the eyes of artist David Wojnarowicz |
| URL | https://www.festival-automne.com/en/edition-2022/philip-venables-answer-machine-tape-1987 |
| Title | Performance of Answer Machine Tape, 1987 at Time of Music Festival, Finland |
| Description | Performance of this major work at Time of Music, Finland, the only annual contemporary music festival in Finland. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work showcased the Keyscanner, as well as giving the audience insights into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, through the eyes of artist David Wojnarowicz |
| URL | https://musiikinaika.org/en/ |
| Title | Performance of SHOW(ti)ME at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival |
| Description | Performance of this interdisciplinary work at the UK's largest contemporary music festival. The performance took place at St Paul's Hall on 21 November. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Performance for an audience of 200. The audience was introduced to the use of MiMU gloves in an interdisciplinary setting around the piano (used while playing the piano as well as movement around the room). The gloves both allowed the use of gesture-based sampling, as well as the live manipulation of piano sounds. |
| URL | https://hcmf.co.uk/programme/zubin-kanga/ |
| Title | Performance of Whatever Weighs You Down at Gaudeamus Festival |
| Description | Performance of Whatever Weighs You Down, a 40-minute work by Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga, at Gaudeamus Festival, Utrecht. This work features MiMU gloves, two video screens, electronics, interdisciplinary elements, and an onscreen performance by Deaf performance artist, Chisato Minamimura. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Gaudeamus Festival is one of the two big contemporary music festivals in the Netherlands, and this performance introduced this international audience to the MiMU gloves, and how they could be used in a collaboration with a disabled artist. The performance was attended by an audience of 150. |
| URL | https://gaudeamus.nl/en/events/gaudeamus-2022-final-night/zubin-kanga-neil-luck/ |
| Title | Pretty Sound (Up and Down) |
| Description | Pretty Sound (Up and Down) by Simon Steen-Andersen. This new version of the work uses bespoke microphone techniques to turn acoustic effects inside the piano into uncanny, almost electronic-sounding effects. The work also uses custom-built playing implements (including precisely measured boards) with microphones attached. The boards were created by instrument designer, Sam Underwood. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | This new version of the work was premiered at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on 22 November 2021 and performed at Kontraklang, Berlin on 3 December 2021, both to sold-out audiences. The work demonstrates new microphones techniques that can be applied across all percussion instruments, and these are being integrated into many new works for solo performer, percussion and for other instrumentalists in forthcoming Cyborg Soloists collaborations. The playing tools were especially designed to be transportable (breaking in half to fit in a suitcase, and then reassembled for each performance). This elegant solution to large performance tools has practical applications to many other playing tools used by pianists and percussionists, allowing for easy transportation of these tools that are otherwise very difficult to tour with. The work was broadcast on the New Music Show on BBC Radio 3 on 22 January 2022. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013ryv?fbclid=IwAR1m-2dU1_1CmmZhjR8PswtAbMCkOmbaTvyFYeDhiO-TsOfNYYPI9487t8w BBC Radio 3 as a weekly audience of 1,993,000 listeners (https://media.info/radio/stations/bbc-radio-3/listening-figures). The broadcast was available online on the BBC website for 4 weeks after the initial broadcast. |
| Title | Ringinglow |
| Description | Ringinglow is a new work for piano and electronics by Georgia Rodgers, created in collaboration with Zubin Kanga. The work plays with the psychoacoustic effects of combining sine tones with live instrumental sound, creating the illusion that the piano's pitch is bending. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The work was premiered at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. It was also recorded for release on the portrait album, September, with the record label, Another Timbre. The use of sine-tones to produce psychoacoustic effects is the result of Rodgers' acoustic research and her collaboration with Zubin Kanga on piano techniques. The work demonstrates how these effects can be achieved using fixed media, and shows a musical application for this research, which emerged out of her health science research into psychoacoustics in public architectural design. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/441380eb61bc915ed6eb |
| Title | SHOW(ti)ME by Laura Bowler and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | A new interdisciplinary work featuring the piano with MiMU gloves, live and fixed video, live and fixed electronics, and theatrical elements. It explores musicians' private and public lives, from public social media personas to private anxieties about practice and performance. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work showcases the use of MiMU gloves in an interdisciplinary work, and also demonstrates the use of live and fixed video alongside each other in a concert work. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/c75d24fb2ea627013871 |
| Title | Scribe |
| Description | A multidisciplinary and multimedia project that includes machine learning, paeleography, transcription, composition and creative writing. The project involves the creation of a fake medieval music manuscript and composer. In collaboration with PRiSM RNCM, I trained a machine learning algorithm on a medieval music manuscript. I then compiled and transcribed the machine outputs into a faux edition, entitled "Marcel le Gan - Music for Three Voices: Marian Antiphons & settings of the Mass," in collaboration with EXAUDI vocal ensemble. The project speaks to two separate issues: how machine learning / AI technologies impact musical creativity; and how early music as a genre/discipline functions. The PRiSM software engineer and an anonymous peer reviewer commented that Scribe presented a unique approach to using machine learning technologies for music composition. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The impact of this work can be demonstrated in the areas of changed perceptions of musical genre and listening processes, and a resulting new mode of expressivity for performers who regularly work within the performance practice of early vocal music. In the early workshops of this piece with the performing ensemble EXAUDI, the musical director of the group commented that the experience of working on the piece was "illuminating", that the music "sheds a light on what we are listening for [in early music repertoire] and when it comes, you find yourself in quite an interesting relationship to what's come before". Similarly, a performer from the ensemble described how the fake edition prompted a unique conversation with a friend - a professional musician - who had been so successfully deceived by the work that they thought they had discovered a hitherto unknown composer (Marcel le Gan, a fictitious composer invented by Mark Dyer, and named as the composer of the work on the title page of the faux edition). This discussion prompted further contemplation by the performer of the potential for a musical score generated by AI (in conjunction with a human arbiter) to stand in for one created solely by a human. The performer suggested that this conversation and reflection enabled them to adopt a more expressive style of singing with the machine-generated score. |
| Title | September |
| Description | September is a portrait CD/digital release of Georgia Rodgers, released by the label Another Timbre. It features a recording of the piano and electronics work Ringinglow, performed by Zubin Kanga. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Peter Margarsak selected the recording to be in Bandcamp's top Contemporary Classical recordings of 2021. He said: "Ringinglow," which is also an actual place, is a dance between the perfect harmonics of sine tones and the less precise ones of a piano colliding and generating fascinating effects. Plenty of composers use their work as research, but not everyone makes those experiments so eminently listenable as Rodgers." |
| URL | http://www.anothertimbre.com/georgiarodgers.html |
| Title | Single Form (Swell) by Alex Groves and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This work uses LUMI keyboards to shape and control sounds from field recordings, using loops and effects to build massive textures. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates the use of LUMI keyboards with Ableton software and MPE to allow the performer to not just alter the dynamic and articulation of the sound, but to alter the timbre. It also demonstrates the use of field recordings on the LUMI keyboard, showing an innovative use of industry partners' technology. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/016faf6ab1ac9e57202a |
| Title | Solo performance at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival |
| Description | Solo performance as part of Short session 2 at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield Town Hall, 22 November 2021. This is the UK's biggest contemporary music festival, and one of the biggest in Europe. World premieres of: Steel on Bone by Zubin Kanga (featuring manipulation of the inside piano sound using MiMU motion sensor gloves), Pretty Sound (Up and Down) by Simon Steen-Andersen, featuring new microphone techniques and custom-built playing tools inside the piano, and Ringinglow by Georgia Rodgers, exploring the psychoacoustic effects of combining sine tones with live instrumental sound, creating the illusion that the piano's pitch is bending. It also featured Laurence Osborn's Absorber, which features a virtuosic interplay between piano and keyboard sampler. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Audience of 90 (full capacity). This was a high profile opportunity at the largest contemporary music festival in the UK to promote these Cyborg Soloists works. Two reviews, In the Times: "But it was impossible not to be gripped and fascinated by Zubin Kanga's Steel on Bone, featuring the adventurous composer-pianist all wired up with electronics, poking around in his piano's innards wearing expensive multi-sensor gloves that transfer hand movements into sound. Henry Cowell, the pioneering American piano basher famous for his cluster chords played with the forearms, would surely have loved the bravura and madness of Steel on Bone. I know I did." - Geoff Brown, The Times, 23 November 2021 In the Telegraph: "More rewarding musically was the set from pianist Zubin Kanga,in which spacey, clangorous sounds obtained by electronically distorting a piano were often laid alongside familiar musical gestures, including (in Laurence Osborn's Absorber) processions of guileless common chords, sullied gradually by foreign notes - a fascinating effect." Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 23 November 2021 Both of these newspapers have national readerships. The Times has a daily circulation of 365,880 and the Telegraph has a daily circulation of 317,817 All the works, and the performance were received favourably by the audience, with remarks including "I particularly liked your piece with the gloves" and "the end of Georgia's piece was amazing, with the illusion that the piano was detuning the electronics" The whole performance was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on the New Music Show: divided into broadcasts on 4 December 2021 and 22 January 2022 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00126tv?fbclid=IwAR2nHi5BBlOaIf3cRpIGqZlEOXqaVqTtdnKC-CpffVoypvSLi20VFs3md3M https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013ryv?fbclid=IwAR1m-2dU1_1CmmZhjR8PswtAbMCkOmbaTvyFYeDhiO-TsOfNYYPI9487t8w BBC Radio 3 as a weekly audience of 1,993,000 listeners (https://media.info/radio/stations/bbc-radio-3/listening-figures). Both broadcasts were available online on the BBC website for 4 weeks after the initial broadcast. |
| URL | https://hcmf.co.uk/programme/hcmf-shorts-2/ |
| Title | Star-Way by Tansy Davies and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Star-Way is a 10-minute work for solo synthesizer. It is written for the Sequential Prophet Rev II synthesizer, which fuses the circuitry of a classic analogue synthesizer with a digital overlay that allows for additional functionality. The work explores the full range of the synthesizer, including its arpeggiator, delay and multi-layering functions. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates new approaches to analogue synthesizer technologies, bringing a formal classical technique to these instruments which have primarily been used by rock/pop musicians (including Radiohead and James Blake). The work has been recorded for commercial release on the Nonclassical label and will be premiered on April 21 2023, with further impacts expected after this date. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/a177dc62712a7b96adfe |
| Title | Steel on Bone |
| Description | This new work by Zubin Kanga utilises the motion and gesture-sensing gloves by MiMU (Cyborg Soloists Industry Partner), using these to shape the sound generated from inside the piano. The work was premiered at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on 22 November 2021, and then performed at Kontraklang Berlin on 3 December 2021. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The work shows how MiMU gloves can be combined with Ableton Live, a common Digital-Audio Workstation used by musicians in the contemporary music scene. Both the MiMU programming patch, and the Ableton session are being published on the website at the end of March. The integration of theatre, performance art and music, in a work around motion-based technologies also provides a model for future collaborations around motion-based technologies with other Cyborg Soloists partners, including Plux and Holonic Systems. The work was favourably reviewed in The Times, who wrote: "But it was impossible not to be gripped and fascinated by Zubin Kanga's Steel on Bone, featuring the adventurous composer-pianist all wired up with electronics, poking around in his piano's innards wearing expensive multi-sensor gloves that transfer hand movements into sound. Henry Cowell, the pioneering American piano basher famous for his cluster chords played with the forearms, would surely have loved the bravura and madness of Steel on Bone. I know I did." - Geoff Brown, The Times, 23 November 2021 The performance at hcmf// was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 on the New Music Show on 4 December 2021 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00126tv?fbclid=IwAR2nHi5BBlOaIf3cRpIGqZlEOXqaVqTtdnKC-CpffVoypvSLi20VFs3md3M BBC Radio 3 as a weekly audience of 1,993,000 listeners (https://media.info/radio/stations/bbc-radio-3/listening-figures). The broadcast was available online on the BBC website for 4 weeks after the initial broadcast. |
| Title | Whatever Weighs You Down by Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Whatever Weighs You Down is a new, 45-minute multimedia work for piano, video, electronics, and movement that builds on two previous, critically successful, small-scale pieces for Zubin Kanga. These were 2018 (2016), which explored a sci-fi world of genetically engineered pianists, and Modern Times and Forms of Love (2019), which explored our many relationships to technology, through parodies of advertising and intimate odes to memories of keyboards past. Whatever Weighs You Down explores fissures of communication within media environments through the rhetoric of 'object-based' broadcasting; techniques for making multimedia environments accessible for audiences with visual or hearing impairments. This flexible approach to the creation of broadcast media allows its individual elements (i.e. audio, video, captioning) to be reconfigured, re-mixed, re-formatted. Kanga's live performance is underlined, outlined, and extrapolated out into electronic sound diffusion, video clips, subtitles, textual descriptions and performed gestures. The performance will mix piano performance, theatre, and live and pre-recorded video and electronics sculpted using MiMU's motion/gesture-sensor glove technology. Central to the piece, Chisato Minamimura, a Deaf performance artist who integrates British Sign Language into her practice, who will appear on screen a parallel performer. Whatever Weighs You Down disorientates and elucidates for the listener/viewer the slipperiness, truths and fallacies of multimedia constructs. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates how new digital instruments can facilitate collaborations between disabled and non-disabled artists. This impacted on all the collaborating artists (including Chisato Minamimura and her Deaf-centred practice). This aspect of the work was featured in a New York Times article, bringing the findings of the research to a worldwide audience. The work also demonstrated to audiences how the MiMU glove can be integrated into an interdisciplinary work, forging a connection between gesture on stage and an on screen. This work was performed to audiences of 250 across the two performances in the UK and the Netherlands. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/600de12b256573cb356d |
| Title | Whirling Dervishes by Shiva Feshareki |
| Description | Whirling Dervishes is a new 45-minute wor inspired by the ancient Sufi tradition where dancers spin until they reach a simultaneously meditative and ecstatic state. The electronics were created out of Feshareki's spatial turntable improvisations, edited together and distributed into a 360° sonic space using cutting-edge ambisonic technology. The reinvented sounds of her previous compositions, cathedral choirs, warped pianos and Shiva's own voice swirl around the audience, infinitely transforming in a constant state of flux. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates new innovations around the use of analogue technologies, taking sounds from turntables and making them move around the room using ambisonic surround sound. The work is due to be premiered in late 2023, with expected further impacts on audiences and other musicians. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/78d7117b59e6ab252a48 |
| Title | cybird cybird by Nina Whiteman and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This work combines AI-generated audio, AI-generated text an speech and AI-generated avatars in a work exploring how birdsong is evolving due to urban sounds. It also uses motion sensor technology from industry partners, Movesense and Holonic Systems to allow the performer to control sound through hand movements. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates the use of AI-generated audio, created with Cyborg Soloists collaborating research Christopher Melen from PRiSM, Royal Northern College of Music. It also demonstrates the use of motion sensors with a commercial app to create an interdisciplinary work, using movement through the air to control sound. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/a99968b762ad57e8cf32 |
| Title | hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel |
| Description | hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel is a groundbreaking work using five Core devices (haptic metronomes) by project partner Soundbrenner. It links these to 3D rollercoaster visuals, creating constantly changing tempi that are haptically transmitted to the pianist's arms, and into the piano strings, from devices placed directly on the strings, creating a virtuosic game of constantly shifting rhythms. The visuals and sounds are transformed using AI systems (including those by Holly+) to create uncanny versions of the original textures. Finally, the Soundbrenner devices are linked to strobe lights, with all of them controlled using a 3D motion sensor - the Wave by Genki Instruments. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work combines Soundbrenner Core devices, 3D visuals, AI manipulation of sound and video, strobe lights and a motion sensor, in a virtuosic and spectacular work. It was premiered on 9 March 2022 at Submerge Festival, Manchester, with 9 performance in total (London, Canterbury, Cambridge, Ludomusicology conference, Convergence Conference at DMU, Leicester, Music in the Round (Sheffield) and Jesus College, Oxford). The work has produced a technical output - a patch that facilitates communication between the app and the No Limits visual programming software. It is a model for future collaborations using Soundbrenner devices - both syncing with video, electronic sound and lights, and being controlled by a 3D accelerometer. And it is also a model for future interdisciplinary collaborations, using a single device outside of its originally intended setting to create an interdisciplinary and entirely original approach to the combination of product, music, other arts and other technologies. Finally, the requirements of the work have resulted in experimental features of the app (in a testflight version used for the development of this work) being implemented by Soundbrenner into their commercial app - these include the ability to control multiple Soundbrenner devices individually using MIDI, which significantly widen the scope and musical possibilities for these devices into the future. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/7311de9e9a57c0830fb2 |
| Title | hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Concert film of hhiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, co-created by Luke Nickel and Zubin Kanga Recorded live at Submerge Festival, Manchester, 18 March 2022. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The video has received 335 views across Zubin Kanga and Cyborg Soloists' youtube accounts. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXkfz_QDwI0 |
| Title | one hundred random demons by Jasmin Kent Rodgman |
| Description | This work combines MiMU gloves, table objects, tape players and modular synthesizers with light sensors in one hundred random demons, a work inspired by Japanese folklore where tools and manmade objects have acquired a 'kami' or spirit, becoming 'tsukumogami'. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The work shows how MiMU gloves can be used to control external analogue instruments, such as a synthesizer. It also demonstrates the integration of digital instruments (MiMU gloves), modular synthesizers and tabletop percussion (such as a kalimba). It will be premiered in April 2023, with further impacts expected after this. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/16a26fedcbf6954a9a66 |
| Description | The most significant achievements from the award cover a wide range of innovations in the way live musicians and technology can interact, emerging from our main Workstreams. 1. Extending The Body. There have been multiple major findings in this Workstream: a. Brain Sensors: Collaborating with a Brain-Computer Interaction researcher at the University of Essex, and our industry partner ANT Neuro, we have successfully translated not just brainwaves, but brainwave-based control mechanisms, from EEG sensor technology into music software. This new finding has the potential to change the way music is composed and performed through direct interaction with the brain, and is being used in a collaboration with leading interdisciplinary composer, Alexander Schubert, in a work with a that will reach fruition in the coming months. These innovations also have the potential for impact back on to brain sensor industry and its use with people with disabilities. b. Motion and Gesture Sensors There have been a number of major new works created using motion and gesture sensors, each one innovating new approaches to these wearable devices. Most notably, Zubin Kanga's collaboration with Neil Luck on Whatever Weighs You Down, which featured interactions between MiMU sensor gloves and Deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura. The project used gestures derived from British Sign Language, and sonified these using the gloves, creating multiple layers of communication and interaction, and demonstrating how technology can facilitate new types of collaboration with disabled artists and audiences. Zubin Kanga's work Steel on Bone used the MiMU gloves to shape and control live piano sound, showing how these digital instruments can be used as a controlling and shaping device with traditional acoustic instruments. And Lola de la Mata's collaboration with Kanga attached motion and biosensors to both the pianist and to two dancers, creating an additional live electronic layer of interaction to this interdisciplinary work, with the performers' movements and heartrates controlling the sound. c. Wearable Metronomes A major work created by Luke Nickel and Zubin Kanga, hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, innovated new ways of using haptic metronomes by controlling multiple devices on the performer's body at once, allowing Kanga to perform tempo curves with both hands in time with on-screen rollercoasters. The resulting control of multiple devices independently has applications to a wide variety of large ensemble uses, as well as for complex session recording - with potential impact on a wide variety of musicians. 2. Remaking the Old A number of new works have innovated new approaches to analogue technologies by combining them with newer digital devices or techniques. Whirling Dervishes uses electronics generated by turntables, but combines this with cutting-edge ambisonics technology to project these in surround sound. one hundred random demons combines both keyboard and modular synthesizers with the MiMU gloves, using a new digital instrument to control older analogue devices. And in a collaboration with senior composer, Tansy Davies, a classic Prophet keyboard synthesizer, used previously by pop musicians, has been reimagined using Davies' orchestral techniques. 3. Video-Body Interactions Many works explore new uses of the video on stage - in Whatever Weighs You Down, Deaf Performance Artist Chisato Minamimura appears as a co-performer onscreen, her BSL gestures interacting with the action on stage. Alwynne Pritchard collaborated with Zubin Kanga to have him duetting with multiple onscreen versions of himself, all playing the same audio score. And Robert Reid Allan worked with Zubin Kanga to use a TouchKeys keyboard to trigger video samples, showing how a new digital instrument can be used to not just control sound, but video. 4. Hyperinstruments A major work was created with the KeyScanner, a new experimental instrument that converts a piano into a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument. This was used in Philip Venables and Zubin Kanga's Answer Machine Tape, 1987, allowing the pianist to type onto screen using the piano, in a work exploring the 1980s AIDS crisis. Cyborg Soloists collaborated closely with Prof Andrew McPherson (Augmented Instruments Laboratory) in honing the design and implementation of the prototype KeyScanner, creating improvements over an iterative process and feeding back the results from the artistic work - these are being implemented into the planned commercial models of the device. There have also been a number of works with instruments from industry partners ROLI and TouchKeys, including those co-created with Alex Groves, CHAINES, Robin Haigh and Robert Reid Allan, with each one innovating new ground in how sensors attached to keyboard instruments can be used to expressive ends. And a new robotic piano mechanism (co-created with Sam Underwood) can allow composers to create sounds using hammers and electromagnets inside the piano, remotely, demonstrating how traditional instruments can be extended, while still utilising their acoustic properties. 5. AI Collaborating with Dr Christopher Melen at the Centre for Practice and Research in Science and Music (RNCM), a number of groundbreaking works were created using AI-generated audio (trained on field recordings, as well as performers' own recordings) and on musical scores (using medieval scores from the British library). These projects, including Kanga's Metamemory (AI audio) and Dyer's Scribe (AI scores) show how AI can be used to explore our music history, creating new works that bring a fresh perspective to the historical models the AI is trained on. 6. Hybrid Works A number of collaborations have resulted in hybrid staged works, the most notable being the collaboration with Laura Bowler on SHOW(ti)ME, which explores musicians' private and public lives (including performance anxiety, contrasted with social media personas). The work combined MiMU gloves, two live videos, pre-made films, live and fixed electronics, speech and theatre, creating a work that broked new ground in how interdisciplinary interactions around music can be expanded and controlled using new technologies. -- Besides the work created, there have been numerous article and conference papers published/delivered around the, as well as more than two dozen technical outputs: downloads of the patches and applications generated, which can be used as tools and models for composers and performers. Objectives All the objectives are being met, with further plans for the future: - To create a Creative R&D hub for interdisciplinary music at Royal Holloway, facilitating the collaboration of a diverse range of composers, performers and technological innovators, to develop the next stage of interdisciplinary music works. Cyborg Soloists has become a vibrant hub of activity with 40 composers, 4 researchers, 15 industry partners (and more joining) and 8 solo performers or ensembles involved in the project. The musicians include many of the leading composers in the UK. We also pride ourselves on the diversity of the collaborators, with a commitment to ensuring gender and racial diversity, as well as inclusion of artists with disabilities. - To develop new electronic musical instruments in dialogues between instrument builders and target performers. As noted above, there have been new instruments built (including he robotic piano mechanism) instruments where the artistic work has influenced their design (the KeyScanner) and existing instruments that have been used in entirely different ways to how they were designed, far from their standard use cases (including the Soundbrenner metronomes, LUMI and TouchKeys keyboards, MiMU gloves, and analogue synthesizers. - To develop new modes of audio and video interaction with live performers. As noted above, there have been many different innovations in the use of video with live performers onstage, from hybrid works where gesture onscreen produces sound onstage when mirrored by the live performer to the use of new digital instruments to control video. Future projects will further innovate in this field, including using brain sensors to control video and lights onstage. - To develop new modes of creative practice using live performers and vintage/analogue technologies. As noted above there have been multiple projects innovating new approaches to synthesizers (both through the compositional technique, and in the combination with digital instruments to control them) and turntables (using ambisonics to use project these in surround sound). - To disseminate the new innovations, both to an academic audience as well as to other musicians, technological innovators in related fields and to the wider public through a range of published and film-based outputs. The innovations have been disseminated to academic audiences through 16 conference papers and publications, and to thousands of members of the public through concerts across the UK and to five countries across Europe. Concert films have been created of all works, which are being posted to the Cyborg Soloists channels and social media channels, as well as smaller demonstration videos showcasing the new technologies. The wider public has also been reached through media interviews and feature articles, including with the BBC World Service, The New York Times, The Times (UK), The Wire, and Limelight Magazine. - To create a series of major musical works, for soloists and chamber groups with other artists featuring the new technological innovations, with outputs featured at major international festivals. The project has created 26 works (with another 14 about to reach completion in the coming months) each innovating in a different way with how live musicians and new technologies can interact. These have been featured at international festivals including: Paris Autumn Festival, Gaudeamus Festival (Netherlands), November Music (Netherlands), Time of Music (Finland), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Kontraklang (Germany) and Music Current (Ireland). |
| Exploitation Route | These outcomes can be used by musicians, not just in the field of contemporary music, but across all genres. The innovations with haptic metronomes have applications to session musicians recording film scores. The innovations with gesture-based instruments could be used by popular musicians doing movement-based stage shows. And the new hybrid and digital instruments have the potential to open new ways for conventional instruments to be expanded, with not just artistic but educational and therapeutic applications. And musicians (both students and professionals) can also learn from the compositional models of the works created, understanding how music and technology can combine to create hybrid interdisciplinary works that foreground a new type of cyborg performer. The academic field is being influenced by the project, as one of the few examining new music projects using experimental technologies, with a Special Issue, a Research Forum and a Symposium planned to further disseminate our examination of this new field to a wider academic audience. The AI-based outcomes can be used as models for future uses of AI on curated historical datasets, forging a different approach to the most recent online uses of AI which uses internet-trawled data. And the brain sensor-outcomes have the potential be game-changing not just in how brain sensors are used in art, but how people with disabilities can engage with and create art, both for creative and therapeutic uses. As noted in the impacts section, the project findings are affecting the design and implementation of technologies created by our collaborators and partners, and for technology researchers, our findings could be used by future instrument designers to create instruments that are both flexible and easy to use. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.cyborgsoloists.com |
| Description | Cyborg Soloists has generated impacts across the research field, professional musicians, technology creators, students and the wider public. We are also beginning to create important impact within academia. The forty-five composers and six performers/ensembles involved in the project so far (excluding the Cyborg Soloists team) have all reported that their participation in the Cyborg Soloists project has resulted in changes in how they approach technology. This has included the development of new knowledge and skills for those musicians that they are applying to future works. The technical innovations covered by this group include the use of body-mounted sensors, new digital instruments, hybrid instruments, new video interactions and AI. The innovations of the new completed pieces by these composers are also influencing other composers, with works being used as models for innovation and as points for the adaptation and extension of software innovations for use in other works - for example, the conversion of rollercoaster data into musical scores and tempi are being used by Luke Nickel in his upcoming work for the Bozzini Quartet, Robin Haigh was able to use the prior TouchKeys software and presets used by Robert Reid Allan for his own work, Morrow, and Research Administrator, Caitlin Rowley was able to use CHAINES' Ableton Live set for 'Escape TERF Island' to transfer understanding of how to work with field recordings on a ROLI LUMI to apply to a ROLI Seaboard. She has plans to use this knowledge in a new piece for keyboard duo. Early career composers and performers (chosen through public calls) have been mentored by the Cyborg Soloists team and benefited from the publicity surrounding their work for the project, which has taken the form of profiles on the project website, mentions on our social media channels with links to artists' own channels where available and a blog post. We will host the premieres of these early career composers' works in May 2023, programming them alongside a well-known performer also involved in the project, which will ensure a sizeable, receptive audience to be introduced to these less established artists' work. The impact on musicians is facilitated through their direct work with the project, through encountering the works in concerts, through viewing concert films, and through public workshops and demonstrations - over the next year this will expand to including impact through downloading patches and apps created for works completed for the project. Surveys of our audiences across the UK have demonstrated changed perceptions of how technology can be used in music, as well as their perception of the technologies themselves (such as AI), with audience members reporting being 'inspired', 'intrigued' and 'entertained'. Audience members have come from diverse occupations including Software Developer, YouTuber, Engineer, Senior Product Manager, GP and Therapist, Programmer and Procurement Officer with positive responses to works and technologies indicating that we are having a positive effect on a general public's experience and understanding of technology in music. The impact on the public can also be seen through the wide media attention the project has received, including a feature article in The New York Times (8.6 million subscribers), a live performance and interview on BBC World Service's show Digital Planet (5 million listeners), feature interviews in The Wire, Limelight, Classical Music Magazine, and Readers Digest, and reviews of project performances in The Times, The Telegraph, The Cusp, Nieuwe Noten (Netherlands) and AltaMusic (France). Our performances and recordings are bringing the innovations of Cyborg Soloists musicians and industry partners to a large international audience. Live events have demonstrated these technologies to 2680 people across the UK and Europe (six countries so far), including performances at many of Europe's biggest contemporary music festivals, including Paris Autumn Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Gaudeamus Festival (Netherlands) and Time of Music (Finland). Zubin Kanga's performance at Gaudeamus has led to an approach from their Artistic Director, confirming a performance at the 2024 festival and declaring interest in commissioning a new Cyborg Soloists work for this performance. The Artistic Director has indicated that they are interested in a long-term relationship with Kanga and the project based on the success of this year's performance. This new relationship will enable the further development of audiences for interdisciplinary music in the Netherlands and provide more opportunities to expose those audiences to the developments being created through Cyborg Soloists. Live performances and recordings have also been broadcast, livestreamed and posted online, reaching over 5 million audience members from countries including Canada and Australia as well as the UK. Our performances have provided an opportunity for audience members to engage with the technology after concerts, with demonstrations taking place at many events. Audiences at 12 concerts have been able to see the Soundbrenner haptic metronomes at close quarters and learn how they work, while four large festival audiences have been able to examine and discuss the KeyScanner used in Philip Venables' 'Answer Machine Tape, 1987', including discussions about the wide range of possible future applications of this hybrid instrument, using the MIDI data to control light or live sound interaction. There have also been discussions and demonstrations of the MiMU gloves after performances of Neil Luck and Zubin Kanga's Whatever Weighs You Down and Zubin Kanga's Steel on Bone, at both performances and presentations to students, with discussions about how the MiMU gloves works with common music software, how other Deaf artists might be able to use the technology, and about the use of British Sign Language in Whatever Weighs You Down, and its influence on our use of the gloves. Audience members have expressed high levels of interest in seeing how these technologies work. Through the performances and demonstrations, members of the public have gained a deeper understanding about the breadth of ways in which music can benefit from new technologies. This also supports the growing interest in the field as a whole that we are seeing, which benefits this technologically focused sector of the music industry. Our website and social media channels are providing insights into the creative process around making new musical works with cutting-edge technologies. We have worked with our artists to create new blog posts around the work done on certain pieces, which have included a how-to guide from early career composer Ed Cooper and a post about translating a concept into reality from Luke Nickel. Individual artists are also posting about the work they are doing, and we are using 'retweet' and 'repost' facilities on social media. Between our own accounts and our artists', our promotional work on social media is sharing these insights with often thousands of people across multiple social media platforms, exposing them to the innovations and new ideas being created within Cyborg Soloists. Our technology collaborators and partners have also reported being impacted by their involvement in our research. Soundbrenner, for example, have increased the capabilities of their existing app based on the requirements of Cyborg Soloists research, a change which expands the future capabilities of their technology, and brings with it an opportunity for further market expansion for this partner. The Augmented Instruments Laboratory have refined the design of their Keyscanner technology through alterations and updates to their prototype instruments based on consultation with Cyborg Soloists and the real-world use of the device in multiple concerts both locally and on tour. PRiSM have gained new knowledge about the capabilities of their Sample RNN Neural Network software through its application on medieval scores for Mark Dyer's piece Scribe, and through the use of large dataset in Zubin Kanga's Metamemory, which are being implemented in Emily Howard's new solo work, Deviance. Our impact on academia has also been significant. We have identified that the use of technology within 'Music in the Expanded Field' (music with interdisciplinary interactions) has been little studied, and our work has resulted in an invitation by Contemporary Music Review to create a Special Issue of this journal on the post-human performer. We have also reached many UK students, through guest seminars, lectures and demonstration workshops around the UK, and through their participation in new works. To date we have received invitations to present at the Guildhall School of Music, University of Kingston, and University of Malta, demonstrating the importance of this work to the current generation of students. We have also undertaken presentations/demonstrations for school students at Waldegrave School (London) and Xavier College (Manchester). We are seeing several projects and developments emerging that are starting to show strong potential for future impacts, including developments which make the latest technological tools easier to use and provide models for their use, demonstrating to our technology partner companies ways in which they can evolve their products to reach potential new audiences for them, and the acknowledgement of our work within academia leading to funding from the National Centre for Research Methods to host a research forum on Practice-Research around new technologies, which will be followed by a symposium, the ultimate result of which will be a manifesto and book on the topic of methods and methodologies in use within interdisciplinary music. This will be the first publication on this topic. Challenges do exist to our future impact, however, and these include the economic costs for artists engaging with new technologies, and the expertise required to work with specialist equipment and software. To address these, we are planning training sessions as well as further educational outreach to both school and Higher Education students, as well as further calls for Early Career artists to be involved in the project, providing access to both the tools and the findings from the first two years of the project. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Augmented Instrument Laboratory |
| Organisation | Queen Mary University of London |
| Department | Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Working with the Augmented Instrument Laboratory - created the first new works with their prototype Keyscanner. Changes to the design and implementation of this hybrid digital device were fed back by Zubin Kanga to the researchers to aid in their iterative design process. The first major work using the Keyscanner was also created, Answer Machine Tape, 1987, which toured to major festivals in Finland, the Netherlands, UK and France. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Technical advice, repairs and updates to equipment, and troubleshooting of technical problems using the Keyscanner. |
| Impact | New Work: Answer Machine Tape, 1987 by Zubin Kanga and Philip Venables Performances: Time of Music Festival (Finland), November Music (Netherlands), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Paris Autumn Festival (France) Software Outputs: Max patch for MIDI-to-text translation to allow the piano to type onto screen using the Keyscanner Media: Feature articles in Limelight Magazine, The Wire and reviews in European press |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Laboratory |
| Organisation | University of Essex |
| Department | School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Zubin Kanga worked with researcher Serafeim Perdikis (Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Laboratory) to create a package of software that allows brainwave data to be taken from ANT Neuro equipment and translated into music software, using EEG Steady State phenomena. The Systems Analysis, testing and coordination with the industry partner were done by Zubin Kanga and Cyborg Soloists. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Serafeim Perdikis provided programming of the software package in response to the systems analysis, providing software for data translation, as well as for control of the music software via stimuli to the visual cortex. Perdikis also provided additional support and programming changes in response to the Cyborg Soloists team to allow it to better work in live musical implementations. |
| Impact | New software package: Allowing the control of music software via EEG brain sensors. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Collaboration with ROLI Luminary |
| Organisation | ROLI |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Developments in collaboration with Cee Haines (CHAINES) and Alex Groves using LUMI keyboards and touchpads. Further development work in process with Benjamin Tassie using the ROLI Seaboards. |
| Collaborator Contribution | A 25 key Seaboard block keyboard was given to the project. Further advice on integration of the ROLI keyboards with other software was provided. |
| Impact | New Work: Escape TERF Island by Cee Haines (CHAINES) and Zubin Kanga Performance: Performance at Royal Holloway, University of London Software output: Ableton patch for use of MPE with ROLI devices New work: Single Form (Swell) by Alex Groves and Zubin Kanga Performance: Music in the Round (Sheffield) and Jesus College, Oxford Software output: Ableton patch for the use of MPE with LUMI devices |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | PRiSM |
| Organisation | Royal Northern College of Music |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration with the PRiSM research centre at the Royal Northern College of Music. The Cyborg Soloists team have created a number of new works using AI-generated audio and visuals, using PRiSM's software and collaborating with their software engineer. Zubin Kanga, Nina Whiteman and Mark Dyer have provided PRiSM with datasets from which to build neural networks. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Christopher Melen (software engineer at PRiSM) has generated neural networks using datasets provided by Cyborg Soloists and collaborating artists, sending back the generated audio and visuals. The results have been AI-generated music and musical scores. He also provided a training day for the Cyborg Soloists team and invited members of the RHUL music department. |
| Impact | New Work: cybird cybird by Nina Whiteman and Zubin Kanga Performances: Music in the Round (Sheffield) and Cafe Oto (London) New work: Metamemory by Zubin Kanga New work: Scribe by Mark Dyer |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Plux |
| Organisation | PLUX - Wireless Biosignals |
| Country | Portugal |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The research team has facilitated a new work with Plux systems to create a new work combining their sensors with a bespoke control system. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Plux has provided a number of Bitalino systems to Cyborg Soloists, including two of their Revolution board kits, and 3 Bitalino plugged kit systems (including many combinations of bio sensors including EEG, EMG and ECG). |
| Impact | New Work: Signs of Life by Joe Snape |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Title | Ableton Live patch for Escape TERF Island - using ROLI devices |
| Description | Ableton Live patch for Escape TERF Island - using ROLI (project partner) devices (LUMI keyboards and touchpads). The session uses MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) in combination with the ROLI devices and bespoke sounds to allow the performer to alter the sounds through touch sensors on the keys. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This Ableton Live patch will be a model for future uses of MPE with the ROLI keyboards and touchpads by Cyborg Soloists composers |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Escape-TERF-Island |
| Title | Ableton and Glover patches for Whatever Weighs You Down |
| Description | These patches allow the control of an Ableton session to play and manipulate a set of patches, using the MiMU sensor gloves. The Glover patch implements this digital instrument with a wide range of functions to allow multiple types of gestural interaction. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This software demonstrates the use of MiMU sensor gloves to control sound, using gestures that have been developed with Deaf Performance Artist, Chisato Minamimura, using elements of British Sign Language. It thus shows how this technology can be used for collaborations with D/deaf artists, and artists with other disabilities. |
| Title | Ableton and Glover patches for one hundred random demons created by Jasmin Kent Rodgman and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | These patches allow the use of MiMU gloves to control an external analogue synthesizer, as well as controlling live audio from modular synthesizers. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | These patches demonstrate the use of MiMU gloves with older analogue technologies (both keyboard and modular synthesizers). It thus shows how new digital instruments can be used to control different generations of instruments, as well as showing new uses and applications of analogue synthesizers. |
| Title | Ableton session for Metamemory by Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This Ableton session shows the loading of AI-generated audio content into a sampler, to be played on a MIDI keyboard. It shows how AI can be used to build instruments, rather than just being utilised in the original form produced by a neural network. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The work will be premiered in April 2022, with large impacts expected after this. There has already been interest from composers (including Luke Nickel) to integrate the same approach into their own work. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Metamemory |
| Title | Ableton session for Single Form (Swell) by Alex Groves and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This patch demonstrates the use of LUMI keyboards (from ROLI) to control sound using pressure, using MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression). |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The patch demonstrates how a LUMI keyboard can be used outside of its original educational use case, functioning as a sophisticated expressive instrument using MPE. |
| Title | Ableton, Max for Live and Glover patches for SHOW(ti)ME |
| Description | This set of patches is for the control of sounds and loops in SHOW(ti)ME using a MiMU sensor glove and control pedal (for looping). |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This patch demonstrates the use of MiMU sensor gloves in a theatrical interdisciplinary work, showing how they facilitate a much wider range of interactions on stage compared to other (older) accelerometer-based sensors. |
| Title | Brain-sensor-data-conversion software suite |
| Description | Software suite of patches and apps for the conversion of brain sensor data from ANT Neuro EEG caps into OSC, so it can be used by music software. It also controls analysis patches in Max/MSP for frequency of analysis within the music software. This type of conversion, facilitating conscious brain control of music software, is groundbreaking. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The software is being used for a major work by Alexander Schubert that will be premiered in 2023-2024, using the brain-sensors to control light and sound in an interdisciplinary work. It also has wide potential impacts not just across the music industry but onto therapy and tools for people with disabilities. |
| Title | Exquisite Engine - PureData patch |
| Description | Exquisite Engine is a software-based system written using Pure Data, intended for use with the Bela Mini nanocomputer (with multichannel expansion) with multiple contact microphones. The patch detects attacks on the active channels to trigger and/or manipulate playback of recordings in real time. The first iteration was created for From the Exquisite Dark (created in collaboration with Josh Spear), where the contact microphones were used to trigger playback to give the illusion that non-sounding objects were producing sounds when interacted with by a percussionist. These interactions included striking, stroking, dropping and switching a power switch on/off, and an option was developed to allow the velocity of the interaction to alter the pitch of the sample played back. Components also exist to allow performers to switch between banks of sounds assigned to the channels in use using either a Trill Bar touch sensor or a MIDI pad controller. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This tool was used to create sonic illusions in Caitlin Rowley and Josh Spear's co-composed piece 'From the Exquisite Dark'. This piece was performed in Cologne for an audience of 30 people in August 2022. |
| Title | Glover patch and Ableton Live session for Steel on Bone |
| Description | This is a patch in Glover (the tool used to map inputs/outputs of MiMU sensor gloves) and Ableton Live (which takes the data from the gloves and turns these into live sound manipulations). The pair were used in Steel on Bone, which uses the gloves to control the speed of multiple delay lines, granulate the sound to different degrees, and also sample recordings from the inside of the piano, using gesture to trigger the samples, and motion to control filters applied to them. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The Glover patch has formed the basis for new patches being used by Neil Luck and Laura Bowler in their upcoming major works as part of Cyborg Soloists, using MiMU motion sensor gloves. The patches also have applications to the integration of disabled artists into interdisciplinary collaborations, including using the patches translate the movements and British Sign Language gestures of deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura into sound, and allowing physically disabled composer Amble Skuse to compose a work based on large movements. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Steel-on-Bone |
| Title | Logic session for Bad Infinity by Ben Nobuto and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This Logic session is for the control of a Logic sampler instrument using the TouchKeys hardware/software to bend pitch. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This Logic session shows how the TouchKeys hardware/software can be applied outside of Ableton to a range of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) including Logic. It thus shows the flexibility of the technology for different musical applications. |
| Title | Max patch and Ableton Session for Interiterations by Amble Skuse and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | Max patch for score generation and control of sound using MiMU gloves, and Ableton session for production of the sounds. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This patch demonstrates how control using the MiMU gloves can also be synced with live score generation to create a constantly evolving work. It also demonstrates the output of a collaboration with a disabled artist, whose practice with the gloves has been influenced by their movement disability. |
| Title | Max patch and ableton session for Morrow by Robin Haigh and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This Max/MSP patch and Ableton session allow for bespoke control of sound using the TouchKeys hybrid instrument, using the touch surfaces to control the speed and volume of samples. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This Max/MSP patch shows the versatility of the TouchKeys instrument, with a bespoke application allowing for control of sound outside of the usual pitch-bending use case. The Max patch is also a useful model for any future patches of this type connected to the TouchKeys instrument. |
| Title | Max patch for Answer Machine Tape, 1987 by Philip Venables and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | This Max patch works with a Keyscanner attached to a full size piano - it converts the resulting MIDI signals into text to be typed onto screen. There are controls for the layout of the text, the speed of the tickertape, as well as the cueing of the tape part. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The patch demonstrates the use of MIDI-to-text conversion, which could be applied to a wide range of MIDI instruments and applications. It is also the first use of the Keyscanner in an applied setting (outside of laboratory testing), showcasing this experimental piece of technology. |
| Title | Max/MSP patch and QLab session for hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel |
| Description | Max patch and QLab files for hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess by Luke Nickel. The QLab allows the Soundbrenner Core devices to be synced with audio and video, and the Max/MSP patch facilitates the use of a 3D accelerometer ring as a control device for both the Soundbrenner Cores and strobe lights. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The QLab session provides a template for future uses of multiple Soundbrenner devices, controlled by MIDI, and synced with other media. This control system was created as part of an experimental beta version by Soundbrenner, but has now been implemented into their commercial app. The Max/MSP patch allows the Soundbrenner devices and strobe lights to be controlled using a 3D motion sensor (in this case a Wave ring from Genki Instruments). This can be adapted for future projects for the use of any controlling instrument or MIDI controller, with applications to future collaborations with Soundbrenner, as well as any future live control of strobe lights in multimedia works. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/hhiiddeenn-vvoorrttiicceess-performance-patches |
| Title | Max/MSP patch for Fake for piano and electronics |
| Description | Score, patch and other accompanying files for Fake for piano and electronics, created by Fergal Dowling in collaboration with Zubin Kanga. Fake uses AnteScofo software built by IRCAM that follows the score as the pianist plays it, allowing close interaction between pianist and electronics. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The patch demonstrates the innovative possibilities of score-following software (outside its educational applications) and points to future work using AnteScofo and similar software. It will be a model for future work in Cyborg Soloists using score-following apps. |
| Title | Max/MSP patch for connecting the No Limits 2 rollercoaster design software to Soundbrenner haptic metronomes |
| Description | The patch was created as part of the collaboration between Zubin Kanga, Luke Nickel and Julian Vogels, the founder of Soundbrenner (project partner). The patch created by Vogels for the project, allows the speed and location data from the rollercoasters built using this design software to be transferred live into the Soundbrenner Core devices, allowing the tempo to be matched in real-time. This data was recorded by Luke Nickel multiple times with different rollercoaster designs, creating his final piece, hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess, which uses up to 5 tempi at once across 5 Soundbrenner Core devices, attached to the pianist and the piano. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The Max patch will be a basis for future integration of the Soundbrenner devices with a range of external software, and will be used with future Cyborg Soloists works featuring the Soundbrenner devices. The requirements of the work have resulted in experimental features of the app (in a testflight version used for the development of this work) being implemented by Soundbrenner into their commercial app - these include the ability to control multiple Soundbrenner devices individually using MIDI, which significantly widen the scope and musical possibilities for these devices into the future. This is a commercially-relevant impact of the experimental collaboration. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/hhiiddeenn-vvoorrttiicceess |
| Title | Max/MSP patch, TouchKeys preset and Ableton set for Do you share coming out stories still? by Robert Reid Allan |
| Description | This collection contains a Max/MSP patch, TouchKeys preset and Ableton set for Do you share coming out stories still? by Robert Reid Allan. The TouchKeys preset pairs with the Ableton set to facilitate pitch-bends and vibrato using a TouchKeys keyboard. The Max/MSP patch runs separately, and triggers video samples in response to the depressing of selected chords. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | This new work will be a template for future collaborations around the TouchKeys keyboards and software. The Max/MSP patch is also an excellent model for live video triggering. |
| Title | Patches and instructions for use of Movesense and Holonic Systems sensors/apps in cybird cybird by Nina Whiteman and Zubin Kanga |
| Description | These patches allow for the integration of Movesense motion sensors with the Holonic Systems phone app to allow for mobile gestural control of sound. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | These patches demonstrate how Movesense motion sensors can be integrated with the Holonic Systems app - they facilitate the connectivity between two different types of technologies, and how this can be applied to an interdisciplinary work. |
| Title | Pretty Sound (Up and Down) - Ableton Session |
| Description | This Ableton session was developed in collaboration with the composer Simon Steen-Andersen for his work, Pretty Sound (Up and Down). It uses close-microphone techniques on surfaces around the piano as well as on playing tools (a piano-sized wooden board, built for this work by Sam Underwood, and a metal guitar slide). Using specific compression, gate and reverb techniques, this approach to amplification makes the piano sound like an entirely different instrument, with the illusion of electronic sounds created using acoustic playing techniques. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | These microphone techniques will be used in future works that feature extended techniques in the piano, allowing these techniques to be highglighted, and play a larger variety of roles in works by giving options for foregrounding/backgrounding and manipulation of colour within the mix. |
| URL | https://github.com/ZubinKanga/Pretty-Sound-Up-and-Down |
| Title | Remote Robotic Piano Action |
| Description | The Remote Robotic Piano Action was designed and created by Sam Underwood and Richard Sewell in collaboration with Zubin Kanga. The device allows the insides of the piano to be played from a remote location (away from the piano keys) using magnetic resonators and different types of motorised hammers. This is an innovative approach to instrument-building creating a hybrid instrument that uses the sonic possibilities of the piano, but creates many sounds not usually possible. The below link shows photographs of the mechanism in action. |
| Type Of Technology | Systems, Materials & Instrumental Engineering |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The work demonstrates how good design and engineering can achieve a hybrid instrument that is transportable and transferrable between pianos. It has been used by composer Joanna Ward for a new work, and will be used in future works demonstrating its capabilities as a hybrid instrument. It also shows the use of basic robotics in musical instrument design, providing a model for both instrument design and automated performance. |
| URL | https://figshare.com/s/1291618b3b3d54d06d2b |
| Description | Broadcast of Digital Planet programme on BBC World Service, featuring Zubin Kanga performance and interview |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Brought Cyborg Soloists' work to a large live London audience, as well as a very large online and radio audience on the BBC World Service of 1.2 million. This worldwide audience was introduced to the innovative research of Cyborg Soloists, focusing on the possibilities of internet-based scores. 70% of the audience members who responded to our audience survey, gave warm responses about work. Their responses included comments on the unusual nature of the audience being able to contribute to the score of the piece, and the inclusive approach to composition that this feature of the work represents: "Inclusive, in the widest sense of the word. Innovative, unusual.", "Inspiring and enabling" (audience responses from survey). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct31yv |
| Description | Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of Zubin Kanga's performance at hcmf// |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Broadcast of Zubin Kanga's 2021 performance at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival on the New Music Show, BBC Radio 3, including his own work Steel on Bone featuring MiMU sensor gloves, and the Ringinglow by Georgia Rodgers, featuring her research into psychoacoustics. BBC Radio 3 has a weekly audience of 1.8 million |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013ryv |
| Description | Feature interview in Classical Music Magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Feature interview in Classical Music magazine (winter issue) focusing on Cyborg Soloists and its research. The magazine is published internationally. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.classical-music.uk/news/article/winter-2023-issue-out-now |
| Description | Feature interview in Limelight Magazine (March 2023) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Feature interview in Limelight Magazine (readership of 20,000 print and 72,000 online). Focus was on the collaboration with Philip Venables on Answer Machine Tape, 1987, including a demonstration of the Keyscanner as a hybrid instrument that facilitates new ways for instruments to be used on stage (to type and control text and spoken audio). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://limelightmagazine.com.au/march-2023/ |
| Description | Feature interview in The Wire (magazine) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Feature article in this magazine with a readership of 20,000. The interview covered many Cyborg Soloists projects, with a particular focus on the major works toured in the autumn (Whatever Weighs You Down and Answer Machine Tape, 1987). The story has led to greater engagement and attendance at performances later in the season (including at hcmf// in November 2022) and interest by composers and research collaborators to participate in the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/466 |
| Description | Guest lecture at the University of Cambridge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | A guest lecture delivered to students of the Computer Science department at the University of Cambridge on 25 November 2021. 30 students attended, with a high level of engagement with the approaches to performance discussed, and particularly, the use of sensors in new works. There was a discussion about how sensors allow a dimension of theatricality to enter electronic music, and many students had not yet previously considered the role of the performer in the new works they are creating. This was a significant student engagement activity outside of a music department, demonstrating that the research activities are significant to computer science students, and to education in programming and software engineering, and their applications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/2122/L312/materials.html |
| Description | New York Times feature article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This New York Times article featured Zubin Kanga and Cyborg Soloists as part of a discussion about the use of new technologies to allow disabled artists to create music and engage with non-disabled artists. It focused on Zubin Kanga's collaboration with Neil Luck and Deaf Performance Artist, Chisato Minamimura. The article had potential reach of 8.6 million digital subscribers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/03/arts/music/technology-disability-music.html |
| Description | Presentation about Cyborg Soloists at the University Open Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | This presentation at Royal Holloway's Open Day looked at a number of AI innovations being used in Cyborg Soloists, as well as our research into Brain-Computer Interaction |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation at Waldegrave School about Cyborg Soloists |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A presentation to Sixth Form students at Waldegrave School about Cyborg Soloists and research at Royal Holloway, University of London. The students were highly engaged and several attended Open Days at the University held after this as a result. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation at the Research Colloquium of the University of Nottingham Music Department |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Research Colloqium, University of Nottingham Music Department, 14 December 2021: "Towards Musical Cyborgs: Developing New Technological Extensions to the Piano and Pianist". This was an invited talk at the regular research colloquium, addressing the whole music department. I discussed recent works with sensors, including Steel on Bone, created using sensor gloves by industry partner, MiMU. The audience of 60 attendees had lots of questions about the role of the performer in working with new technologies, the engagement with WIKI-PIANO (the internet score), the future plans with Cyborg Soloists, and the approach to collaboration and distributed creativity in the new works. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/departments/music/documents/2021/autumn-21-term-poster.pdf |
| Description | Project Website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project website has been created to feature and showcase the research outputs of Cyborg Soloists, including project events and news about project developments and individual pieces. It also documents all the artists working with the project and the works being created. Photographs and videos of work in progress as well as performance documentation are being added gradually, providing a rich resource around the pieces being created for the project. Current partners and collaborators are featured on the site, and potential partners and collaborators can review the scope of our past work and contact us through various channels including email and social media. The site launched in Februrary 2023 and across its 13-month lifetime it has received 8,100 views from 2,700 visitors. Our Google Analytics statistics show our social media channels are effectively directing engaged traffic to our website, especially from Facebook. We have now published ten blog posts, some announcing project news such as our Call for Collaborative Music Projects (viewed by 268 visitors over the 9 months since publication) while others relate directly to pieces created for the project, such as Luke Nickel and Caitlin Rowley's co-authored post 'Roller coaster resonance: Translating speed to pulse', about Nickel's piece 'hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess'. These posts are useful both for enriching the record of the works focused on, but also to draw more attention to the piece, the composer and the industry partner(s) involved. Blog posts are promoted via our social media channels and offer an opportunity to engage these audiences by offering insights into pieces. The site features a rapidly expanding record of Cyborg Soloists activity, including 22 past events (performances and public talks), nine conference papers, seven publications and one recording, and lists 39 artists participating in the project, most with biographies and links to their own websites. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| URL | https://cyborgsoloists.com |
| Description | Project social media channels |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Cyborg Soloists' social media channels (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and - launched in 2022 - Mastodon and YouTube) are building an international audience for our work and all steadily increasing in reach. We have established connections with our artists' and industry partners' accounts on these channels, allowing us to tag relevant contacts, which creates more mentions of our project, mutual sharing of content and increases the reach of our work. Twitter is our most active and effective channel in terms of reach, engagement and follows, with Instagram posts also proving useful, most notably for short-form video content - short trailers for pieces and demonstrations of technology in particular. Mastodon is a new channel for us in 2022, and while metrics are difficult to access here, we are gradually reaching and retaining an audience that largely comes from a music technology background who we are not particularly reaching through other channels, so while this one is slow to develop, it has a unique audience that does not overlap very much with our other channels. We have also launched a YouTube channel in 2022, to host our performance videos and short-form video content for blog posts and social media. We have just published our second performance video here - the first, of Zubin Kanga performing Luke Nickel's 'hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess' at Submerge Festival in Manchester, has received 149 views since it was released in October 2022. Our short-form video content is also receiving attention - the 4-seconds-long 'short' demonstrating the Augmented Instruments Lab KeyScanner device (used in Philip Venables' Answer Machine Tape, 1987) has received 2,900 views and 62 'likes', reaching an audience mostly in Asia and gaining 3 new subscribers for this new platform for us. Each channel has applied our project's visual identity and is presenting consistently branded communications, with posts being adjusted for tone and detail as appropriate to each channel. All channels are proving an important avenue for engaging with artists, researchers and industry about the project's activities and we are regularly sharing content including text announcements of current activity, photographs and short videos of work being developed or workshopped, blog posts published on our website, information about performances and - in the case of the faster-moving Twitter and Mastodon channels, retweeting news items of interest to our audience, such as relevant conference announcements from other institutions. This additional content helps to keep our audience engaged with us and to build awareness of Cyborg Soloists among the academic community in our areas of interest in particular. We have seen encouraging responses through social media to two projects launched in the past year: our Call for Collaborative Music Projects and the Call for Proposals for our upcoming symposium. Our announcements of the Call for Collaborative Music Projects gained around 7,000 impressions on Twitter alone, with our team's short demonstration videos gaining 179 plays on Instagram - we ultimately received a strong field of 37 applications to this call - 21% of which gave 'social media' as the source they found out about the call from. In February 2023, we launched our Call for Proposals for our upcoming symposium, 'Music Ex Machina: Methods and Methodologies for Technology-centred Practice-Based Research in Contemporary Music'. Our first announcement of this call on Twitter was engaged with 84 times, for a total of 3,667 impressions and 17 new follows. twitter.com/CyborgSoloists Instagram.com/CyborgSoloists facebook.com/CyborgSoloists musicians.today/@cyborgsoloists youtube.com/@cyborgsoloists |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022,2023 |
| URL | http://twitter.com/CyborgSoloists |
| Description | Research Seminar at City, University of London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 15-20 students and 3-4 staff attended a presentation at the City, University of London Music Department Seminar Series. The presentation covered a range of current Cyborg Soloists research. The event took place on 13 April 2022 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/2022/april/the-cyborg-performer-the-performers-role-in... |
| Description | Review in The Times (UK) - 23/11/21 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Review in the The Times (daily readership of 843,766) covering Zubin Kanga's performance at hcmf// in 2021. Kanga's work (featuring MiMU sensor gloves) Steel on Bone received particular praise: "'But it was impossible not to be gripped and fascinated by Zubin Kanga's Steel on Bone, featuring the adventurous composer-pianist all wired up with electronics, poking around in his piano's innards wearing expensive multi-sensor gloves that transfer hand movements into sound. Henry Cowell, the pioneering American piano basher famous for his cluster chords played with the forearms, would surely have loved the bravura and madness of Steel on Bone. I know I did." - Geoff Brown, The Times. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/london-sinfonietta-review-a-riotous-trip-to-catalonia-with-the-mu... |