ResearchWorks: Cyborg Soloists - Music and Technology in the Expanded Field

Cyborg Soloists is a UKRI-funded Future Leaders Fellowship project led by Director and Principal Investigator Dr Zubin Kanga. Hosted at Royal Holloway, University of London, it explores interdisciplinary interactions between music, the other arts and new digital technologies, connecting composers, performers and sound artists with industry partners to develop artistic and technological innovations.

This presentation explores several case studies from the project covering diverse areas including motion and gestures sensors, bio-sensors, new digital instruments, wearable haptic metronomes, and AI-generated audio and video. These cases can provide us with new insights into digital organology, the emergence of the posthuman performer, the role of technology in collaborations involving artists with disabilities, and the impact that musicians can have on technology design.

Speaker

Zubin Kanga is a pianist, composer, and technologist. For over a decade, he has been at the forefront of curating and creating interdisciplinary musical programmes that seek to explore and redefine what it means to be a performer through interactions with new technologies.

In 2020, following his appointment as Lecturer in Musical Performance and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway University, Kanga was awarded a £1.4 million UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship to fund his latest multi-year project Cyborg Soloists, which is unlocking new possibilities in composition and performance through interactions with AI and machine learning; interactive visuals and VR; motion and biosensors, and new hybrid instruments.

Zubin has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers and premiered more than 130 works. He has performed at many international festivals including the BBC Proms, hcmf// (UK) Melbourne Festival (Australia), Festival Présences (France), Time of Music (Finland), Klang Festival (Denmark), and November Music (Netherlands). Recent collaborations include major new works by Philip Venables, Nicole Lizée, Neil Luck, Shiva Feshareki, Laura Bowler, and with Alexander Schubert on his internet-based WIKI-PIANO.NET (performed 30 times across 9 countries) as well as a new work, Steady State, that will use EEG brain sensors to control sound and light.

Guildhall School’s ResearchWorks is a programme of events centred around the School’s research activity, bringing together staff, students and guests of international standing. We run regular events throughout the term intended to share the innovative research findings of the School and its guests with students, staff and the public.