User:Nickbk

Dr. Nick Bryan-Kinns is Lead of the Interactional Sound and Music Group at the Centre for Digital Music, and member of the IMC Research Group at Queen Mary, University of London.

Current Projects

Daisyphone - the World's first global Live iPhone Jam! In fact, the world's first ever mobile distributed collaborative music experience.

uDoodle - the World's first mobile shared whiteboard! Yes, the world's first multiperson distributed mobile whiteboard.

Currently I am working with Proboscis and the Mixed Reality Lab, Nottingham on Sensory Threads - a collaborative audio development of their Snout mobile sensing project. The key question is how to sonify multiple streams of real time data over a long period of time in an aesthetically engaging way. The project is funded as part of the EPSRC Creator cluster investigating the challenges for the creative industries, and by the Centre for Digital Music.

Research Programme

I Research into collaboration, mutual engagement, and the design process.

The central focus of my research programme is on understanding how to design for mutually engaging interaction. Ongoing research includes the development of novel group music improvisation tools such as Daisyphone. These tools are used to systematically investigate the nature of mutual engagement in collaborative interaction.

I was also involved in creating the world's first interactive 3D soundscape driven by acceleration data with Jennifer Sheridan of BigDog Interactive, and Martyn Ware of Illustrious. I also worked with Jennifer Sheridan on uPoi - a wireless exertion interface for collective ad-hoc audiovisual performances. We have explored uPoi's use in the harsh environment of the UK music festival and club scene.

Oh, and I am a Co-Investigator on the Centre for Digital Music EPSRC Platform Grant (£1m) and the EPSRC Media and Arts Technology Doctoral Training Centre (£5m) here at Queen Mary.

I am a Panel member for the NSF CreativeIT program, am a reviewer for: Behaviour & Information Technology Journal, the Computer Music Journal, Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal.

Conferences

Chair of ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009, Berkeley Art Museum, CA, USA. 27-30 October 2009. Here is a video of the Serendiptichord piece I commissioned Di Mainstone to create with PhD student Tim Murray-Browne for Creativity and Cognition 2009. The aim with these Centre for Digital Music commissions is to explore the intersection of cutting edge research and artistic practice.

In Sep 2008 I co-chaired the (re)Actor3 International Conference on Digital Live Art, and commissioned a new piece of Digital Live Art exploring the intersection between performance, physical instrumentation, and algorithmic signal processing. You can see hightlights in the video below.

Co-chair of HCI 2006 in London, programme committee for (re)Actor1 and 2 . Practitioner representative on the British HCI Group committee. Short papers chair for HCI 2005 in Edinburgh. Poster chair for HCI 2004 in Leeds. Poster chair for HCI 2003 conference in Bath. Programme committee for IGC 2003 workshop at the ICA in London.

Teaching

At the moment I supervise three PhD students. Robin Fencott worked with me on the Sensory Threads project with Proboscis. Oussama Metatla is almost finished and his research investigates the interactive sonification of diagrams. Shahin Nabavian has submitted, and his work investigated the nature of collaborative composition. I also co-supervise Tim Murray-Browne and Dan Stowell, focussing on evaluating their interactive audio experiences.

Also, I Lecture at Queen Mary, University of London on Graphic User Interfaces and Computer Mediated Communication, and supervise projects on interactive music or user interface design. Also, undergraduate admissions tutor for Computer Science.

I have examined University of Technology Sydney (external) and University of London (internal) PhD candidates.

In the old days...

In the old days I co-directed Optic Experience Design; it was a rather fine user experience consultancy. From 2005 to 2009 I was Chair of the advisory team for Usabilitynews.com.

Publication

Please see my personal webpage for a list of publications.