Lead of the Interactional Sound and Music Group
at the Centre for Digital Music,
and member of the IMC Research Group.
Recipient of the ACM Recognition of Service Award, 2010.

Current Projects

I have an 18 month project starting in 2010 on Collaborative Cross-Modal Interfaces, funded by the EPSRC Research in the Wild Programme.

Daisyphone - the World's first global Live iPhone Jam! In fact, the world's first ever mobile distributed collaborative music experience. Check out the interview about it on the BBC World Service.

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

Currently I am working with Proboscis 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.

Below is a video of Daisyphone and Sensory Threads exhibited at the Surface Tension Event at the Science Museum, London, UK, on 23rd June 2009.

Research Programme

I Research into collaboration, 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. Such work has ben partly funded by an ESPRC funded research project on Engaging Collaborations.

A key focus my research is haptic and non-screen based collaborative engagement with interactive music and collaboration such as work 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. 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.

Oh, and I am a Co-Investigator on the Centre for Digital Music EPSRC Platform Grant (£1m), the EPSRC funded Software Sustainability for Digital Music project (£1.1m), 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, will be editing a special issue of the CoDesign journal on collaborative creativity, and am a reviewer for: Behaviour & Information Technology Journal, the Computer Music Journal, Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal.

nickbk@eecs.qmul.ac.uk
Centre for Digital Music,
and IMC Research Group
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science,
Queen Mary,
University of London,
Mile End, London. E1 4NS
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7882 7064

nickbk@eecs.qmul.ac.uk

Conferences and Exhibitions

Chair of ACM Creativity and Cognition 2009, Berkeley Art Museum, CA, USA. 27-30 October 2009.
Co-Chair of (re)Actor3: The Third International Conference on Digital Live Art.
Co-chair of BCS HCI 2006 in London.

Below is a video of the Serendiptichord piece I and BigDog Interactive 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. This work was picked up by the New Scientist when it was exhibited at Kinetica art fair, 2010.

Commissioned by the Centre for Digital Music, produced by BigDog Interactive for the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference 2009, Artist: Di Mainstone, Sound Designer: Tim Murray Browne, Supported by the Interactional Sound and Music Group.

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.

(re)Actor3: this is LIVErpool produced by BigDog Interactive from Dreamtime Film on Vimeo.

And the rest...

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.

From 2005 to 2009 I was Chair of the advisory team for Usabilitynews.com.

In the old days I co-directed Optic Experience Design; it was a rather fine user experience consultancy.

Teaching

At the moment I supervise three PhD students. Robin Fencott has just started, and is working 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.

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

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.