bromwol
bromwol (2024) is an interactive installation exploring textiles as electronic musical instruments.
It is a collaborative project between Dianne Verdonk, Michelle Vossen and Roald van Dillewijn. Literally meaning humming wool, they experimented with carded sheep wool mixed with conductive fibers to create fuzzy interfaces for musical performance. Dianne & Roald performed with bromwol; in between performances the audience was invited to try it out themselves.
bromwol was presented at U? Festival in Utrecht on November 9 2024. The development of bromwol is supported by Sounds Like Touch.
NIME 2024
The 2024 edition of NIME took place in Utrecht from 2 — 6 September, with online access for remote participants. NIME2024 was initiaed and co-organised by Sounds Like Touch, along with Gaudeamus and the University of the Arts Utrecht (HKU), marking a unique collaboration at the intersection of research, education and experimental music practice.
New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) is an international conference about new musical interfaces, their artistic use and the technologies involved in building them. During the conference, researchers from all over the world share their knowledge and the latest developments in their work. The conference started as a workshop at the CHI conference in 2001 and has been held annually around the world since then.
Sounds Like Touch programmed key note speakers, the opening and closing talk and and facilitated a series of peer coaching sessions. During these sessions artistic director Dianne Verdonk and tech dramaturgist Marijke Hessels supported performing participants in their artistic expression though the use of technology.
NIME 2024 was partly embedded in Gaudeamus Festival 2024, which attracts around 3,000 national and international visitors each year. Known for its forward-thinking programming, the festival also hosted the Gaudeamus Award (an incentive prize for composers under 35) and featured numerous concerts and events that strongly resonated with the NIME audience. The Off-NIME programme offered additional performances and informal gatherings that reflected the spirit of experimentation and community central to NIME, adding further depth to the experience.
Sounds Like Touch is proud to have played a key role in bringing creators and thinkers from around the world together to explore new ways of making and experiencing music.
interwave
Interwave is a platform that transfers physical, tactile interaction into digital parameters to create music or other digital performative arts.
Unlike the large variety of available hardware platforms for connecting sensors to a musical interface or instrument, there’s hardly any prefab toolboxes available for physical expression. The common way is to attach ‘naked’ sensors to microcontrollers which are non-mountable to (remote) materials, nor adaptable to personal wishes for movements. Furthermore, you need technical skills to get it to work, or you just want to get started without ‘wasting’ time on technical hassle and focus on the artistic outcome of the project instead.
With the interwave project Roald van Dillewijn and Dianne Verdonk aim to create an open source industry standard for mounting certain sensors and create a plug-and-play connection, compatible to instruments using protocols like midi, cv and OSC.