🎹🎚️🥁Augmented Instruments Lab 🎛️🎸🎻

Full video on my YouTube ! Made as a part of my PhD with the @augmentedinstrumentslab for New Interfaces for Musical Expression NIME 2026 We introduce Ephemerides, a Microtonal Feedback Instrument based on Trans Voice Technique Videography @ohkestrel_film

Last week, 3 members of our lab travelled to @uniofnottingham to attend the AI Music Studies conference 2026! Andrew McPherson & Teresa Pelinski presented "Of Ghosts and Slop: is there 'an' AI Music Aesthetic?". Additionally, Andrew McPherson, Teresa Pelinski, and Francisco Bernardo participated in the 'MusAI' panel discussions.

Join us this Thursday the 26th of March for a seminar by Tom Richards (@mini_oramics ): "Daphne Oram and Oramics" 🎥 stream the talk at 11am UK time in our youtube channel (🔗link in bio ) or drop us a line if you want to come in person at @imperialdyson ~~~Talk abstract:~~~ Daphne Oram (1925 – 2003, UK) was a pioneering British composer, electronic musician, and the inventor of the Oramics Machine (1966). The Oramics Machine allowed Daphne Oram to synthesize and sequence sound by painting lines and other marks on glass slides and film strips. Oram invented it as a new means of musical expression, one that enabled her to finely control and vary sounds in ways that surpassed the capabilities of audio tape manipulation, which was the primary method of electronic music production at the time. The initial Oramics Machine was quite large and was permanently installed in Oram’s Kent studio, making it impractical for use by the majority of musicians. Tom Richards has constructed the Mini-Oramics machine (2016) as part of his doctoral studies. The design of this machine is based on Oram's own ideas for a second more portable version of her original invention. In this lecture and demonstration, the story of Oramics will be followed by a hands-on demonstration of Richards’ Mini Oramics interface.

Join us on Monday the 16th of March for a seminar by @kathyhinde : "Magnetic sensing as an inspiration for an installation and performance" 🎥 stream the talk at 2pm UK time in our youtube channel (🔗link in bio ) or drop us a line if you want to come in person at @imperialdyson . ~~~Talk abstract:~~~ After introducing her practice with a short overview, Kathy will share the research and development of her current project 'Magnetic Resonance' inspired by how birds sense the geomagnetism of the earth to navigate. Despite decades of scientific research, the magnetoreceptor mechanism remains elusive; current theories point towards light-sensitive eye proteins called cryptochromes, connected to quantum entanglement and the concept of radical pairs. During a research residency at Instrument Inventors at The Hague in 2024, Kathy prototyped an interface consisting of a trio of illuminated magnetic pendulums that are set in motion through the switching of magnetic fields. With this interface, she is currently following two lines of enquiry one is to develop a live spatial audio performance, and the second is to create an autonomous installation.

Instrument design by and for disabled musicians is the topic of a fully funded PhD at Imperial College. @theohmitrust is the non academic partner. Applications close 15th of February. Click the link in my bio for more info! ❤️🐭🐭 🎥 Video description: A white woman (me) wearing a red sweater and holding a black puppy (Bobby). The image is a mid shot showing my head, shoulders and Bobby’s head and a bit of his body is sneaking into frame. #instrumentdesign #disabledmusicians #ohmitrust #imperialcollegelondon #fullyfundedphd

Master of digital instrument design, Prof Andrew McPherson of the @augmentedinstrumentslab doing micro-surgery on the KeyScanner. See this extraordinary tech in action in @philipvenables ’ Answer Machine Tape, 1987. 30 November: @concertgebouwbrugge (Belgium) 5 December: @kingsplacelondon (UK) Booking links in bio. A @cyborgsoloists project.

The Keyscanner in action, a device created by the @augmentedinstrumentslab that turns the piano into a hybrid acoustic/MIDI instrument, allowing me to type text onto the screen or control live electronics. See it in @philipvenables ’ Answer Machine Tape, 1987, in two upcoming performances: 30 November: @concertgebouwbrugge (Belgium) 5 December: @kingsplacelondon (UK) Booking links in bio.

And today we had the pleasure of welcoming Vince De Franco @vincedefranco to the lab, where he came to show the amazing MandalaDrum (@mandaladrum ) and Pipes in action. 🥁 check out his website

A couple of weeks ago @junebug.codes , @sarah_angliss , Andrew McPherson and Melanie Pappenheim spent a couple of days experimenting at the Townshend Studio at the @uniwestlondon

Two weeks ago Peyman Heydarian @santurista visited us at the lab. We had fun experimenting with Lorentz force string actuation on his Santur 🧲⚡️

⚡️ Introducing the Sparksichord ✨ a harpsichord augmented with 48 self-sustaining brass strings. By running current directly through the strings in a magnetic field, we can sustain, shape, and transform their resonance. This approach traces its lineage back to Alvin Lucier’s Music on a Long Thin Wire (1980), where Lucier first explored the idea of running current through a string in the presence of magnets. While Lucier used prerecorded audio to excite the wire, the Sparksichord builds on that same principle with live feedback and per-string control. Team: Adam Schmidt, Jeffrey Snyder, Gian Torrano Jacobs, Joseph Gascho, Joyce Chen, and Andrew McPherson. @schm.adam @snyderphonics @cembalo418 @augmentedinstrumentslab Shout out to @allienski for helping us with pybela, a Python library that allowed us to record real-time data from the Sparksichord strings using the Bela system. Check out the full paper, and be on the lookout for a (more portable) AutoHarp version ~

Teresa Pelinski @allienski is a final-year PhD student at the Augmented Instruments Lab @augmentedinstrumentslab at Queen Mary University of London. Her PhD is the first to be sponsored by Bela, and as part of her research she has been exploring how neural networks can support creative practice on embedded systems. During an initial internship with Bela in 2023, Teresa began developing **pybela**, a Python library that allows real-time communication between a C++ Bela program and a Python script or Jupyter notebook. This makes it easy to send and receive data while your Bela code is running, very useful for machine learning pipelines, as well as for any data-driven experiments and real-time performance. pybela encourages a different kind of AI practice. Instead of large black-boxed models trained on massive datasets, it supports a more experimental, embodied approach: working with small, custom datasets and creatively engaging with the constraints of embedded hardware. This plays to Bela's strengths of design for low-latency and real-time interaction. Bela Gem is available now on Crowd Supply, link in bio 🔗🔗 @crowdsupply #bela #belaio #synth #synthesizer #augmentedinstruments #instrumentdesign #embeddedai #aimusic #belagem