The FAST project combined forces with the ESRC PETRAS Internet of Things project in a public event at the at the Tate Modern on 8-9 February. The event explored how the Internet of Things is changing our lives now, and how it may influence or disrupt our futures – at home, at work and in our environment.
Professor David De Roure (University of Oxford) closed the event with a discussion about IoT, music, and creativity with his talk “The making of music: creative algorithmic interventions and the imagination of Ada Lovelace”, including demos of arduino-based and algorithmically-enhanced electronic instruments developed in the FAST project.
David’s talk was preceded by a piece of music with accompanying film by Alan Chamberlain (University of Nottingham) which was specially produced for the event alongside the live premiere of his piece “Pen Dinas in Voice” on Friday 8th February at the Bangor Music Festival. The composition used the ‘Numbers into Notes’ software produced by David De Roure, with the same algorithms used in the demonstrations in his talk.
The film can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl3KrfYc3r8
Audio is available here: https://soundcloud.com/alain_du_norde/pen-dinas-in-voice
David De Roure commented, “This was an exciting and lively event, exploring our possible futures in two days of conversations with highly engaged, intrigued and insightful visitors to Tate Modern. For me it was a great opportunity to bring together two of our research projects, FAST and Petras, and to revisit a conversation about machines, music and creativity that has been going on since 1843… if not before”.
Alan Chamberlain added: “The FAST project has been the catalyst for a range of innovative technologies and works of art. By using technologies such as ‘Numbers into Notes’ the people are able to engage and understand how such technologies might be used”.
A news post from the University of Nottingham can be found here – “Musical Composition and its Impact on Culture and Research”.
The event was well attended by over 1300 members of the public across two days, with lively discussion and engagement with an exciting range of demonstrations, including Living Room of the Future, Smart Utopia, Karma Kettles, Human Sensor, Coral Love Story, The Listening Wood, Tales of the Park, Data Feeders, and Move for Me Baby. Further information can be found on the Tate Modern website.
The PETRAS Internet of Things (IoT) Research Hub is a consortium of nine leading UK universities working together to explore critical issues in privacy, ethics, trust, reliability, acceptability, and security.