Remote_CTRL Residency
Curation & Production
Remote_CTRL residency
Remote_CTRL invited five disabled digital artists and musicians to spend the summer of 2021 making new work that explores and expands the creative and technical potential of MiMU Gloves.
The residency included:
A pair of MiMU Gloves, for each artist to use through the residency and to keep, as a lasting investment in their work.
Introductory workshops, getting everyone set up with their Gloves.
Group workshops throughout the residency.
Tailored 1-1 creative and technical support sessions with chosen mentors from our team of artists and technologists.
Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime talk to share work in progress
An artist stipend, materials budget, travel budget and access support.
Residents contributed to a research paper, developed in partnership with technologists from UWE’s department of Computer Science and Creative Technologies, led by Dr Tom Mitchell.
Artists
Andrea Spisto
Andrea Spisto is a Venezuelan/Curaçaoean performance artist, film-maker and neuroqueer clown, whose work focuses on playful autobiographical exploration through physical masks (characters) that delve into the corners of the psyche. The work follows thematic interweaving, moving adjacent to narrative storytelling.
Straddling live art, comedy, theatre and clowning, Andrea’s work has been described as genre smashing, surreal, gentle and exuberant. Andrea is a graduate in Devising Theatre & Performance at LISPA (Art-Haus Berlin) in Lecoq, specialising in clown through mask & embodied movement.
Works include: Miss Venezuela (2018), Butch Princesa (2019-2021), Tylor and Vincent: The Pilot (2018), Tylor and Vincent: Pussy and Money (2019), 50 Ways to Kill A Slug (2019), Tylor and Vincent: At Home (2020), Isla/Island (2021)
Venus Ex Machina
Venus Ex Machina is a composer, producer and technologist with a background in mathematics and engineering. Her projects include releases on AD93, NON Worldwide and Optimo Music, an installation for Hyperdub, a score for the ICA & Channel 4; and work with Berklee College of Music, Slade School of Fine Art, Tate Britain, Café Oto, SHAPE Platform, Somerset House Studios and the V&A Museum.
In 2018, she developed a “pirate AI” opera as a Fellow of CTM Festival, and led a workshop on radio transmitter building at Moogfest. In 2019, she was featured in a documentary by FACT Magazine and the British Council, “Sonic Futures: How Technology is Guiding Electronic Music”. She has also engaged in outreach as a member of Code Liberation which catalyses gender diversity in creative technology.
Venus Ex Machina is currently engaged in research exploring the distinct expressive opportunities and ethical considerations inherent to music and artificial intelligence.
Rylan Gleave
Rylan Gleave is a Glasgow-based composer and vocalist whose music addresses intersectional identity, re-contextualised natural situations, and quiet, furious resistance. His musical practice is inclusive, and involves mending the unfeigned gaps in his classical study with the healings of imaginative neuro-/gender-divergent kinship.
His music has been praised as ‘haunting’ by The Herald, and ‘rapturous’ by The Scotsman, who named him ‘One to Watch’ 2021, describing him as ‘one of the brightest lights in Scotland’s new music scene’. Rylan is graduating from a Master of Music Degree in July 2021 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, after studying with Dr. Linda Buckley.'
Amble Skuse
Amble’s work focused on using voices, speech patterns, found sound, and live interactive processing to explore ideas of identity & location. She works with live instruments, electronics, Logic and Max/MSP and body sensors to create soundscapes, improvisations, networked performances, and compositions.
Amble was commissioned to write a bespoke piece for instruments and technology for the British ParaOrchestra. Charles Hazlewood described her as a “fierce creative spirit [that] could not be more welcome! We couldn't ignore Amble's violinistic brilliance (a true sonic adventurer)”.
Her most recent work We Ask These Questions of Everybody is a digital opera exploring the lives of Disabled people in the UK through an interview with the government agency responsible for disability support. The opera was written rehearsed and recorded in a networked ensemble during the first lockdown on 2020. It was premiered at Scotland's Sound Festival and gained a 5 start review from The i “Politically important and an artistic triumph”.
Ben Lunn
Ben Lunn is a Mackem composer who studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under the guidance of Peter Reynolds, and also the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with Marius Baranauskas. He has also received mentorship from composers Param Vir and Stuart MacRae. Since graduating from his Master’s Lunn relocated to Glasgow, where he currently resides; working as conductor, musicologist, teacher and composer. As a composer, Lunn’s music reflects the material world around him, connecting to his North-Eastern heritage or how disability impacts the world around him or his working-class upbringing.
Lunn is associate artist for Drake Music and Drake Music Scotland, and Trainee Artistic Director of the Hebrides Ensemble. In 2021, Ben helped found the Disabled Artist Network, an organisation which is bridging the gap between the professional world and disabled artists. In 2020 Ben was elected to the Musician’s Union Equalities Commission.
Workshop facilitators and Creative + Tech Support Team
Bishi
Bishi is a singer, electronic rock-sitarist, composer, producer, and performer born in London of Bengali heritage. As a multi-instrumentalist, she has been trained in both Hindustani and Western Classical styles and studied the sitar under Gaurav Mazumdar, a senior disciple of Ravi Shankar.
Bishi is the founder of WITCiH: The Women in Technology Creative Industries Hub, a platform elevating Womxn in Tech. In 2021 she curated WITCiH Digital; an online festival headlined by Laurie Anderson.
Bishi's collaborations and commissions for the stage include The London Symphony Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet, Yoko Ono's Meltdown’, The Science Gallery, Joanna McGregor, Nick Knight's SHOWstudio’, an ASVOFF film award with fashion designer Manish Arora, and collaborations with Sean Ono Lennon, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Norris, Daphne Guinness & City of London Sinfonia as a Tanpura soloist on Jonny Greenwood's 'Water.' She produced LANDR's first ever Sitar sample library for electric Sitar.
Chagall
Chagall is an electronic music producer, songwriter, singer, performer & technology innovator. She creates audio-visual live music performances that reimagine the world of live electronica. With new motion based controller technologies she uses the movement of her body to control all electronic sounds
and visuals in real-time.
In 2019 she created Advaita for which she turned the Xsens motion capture suit into a full body musical instrument. The motion capture suits enables her to control real-time avatars that dance with her on the screen. The result is a synergy of movement, music and visual effects performance that is understood intuitively and emotionally.
Chagall is currently working on a LED & live lighting installation that she will also react to her music and movement to perform the songs she has written during the lockdown.
Lula.xyz
Lula Mebrahtu, a.k.a lula.xyz is a creative enigma. Habesha by way of London, lula.xyz is the vanguard of creative expression. Equipped with cutting edge technology MiMu Gloves and a soulful timbre which carries the weight of her heritage, lula.xyz makes levitation through sound waves possible, singing about a lived experience of the past, present, and future.
From My Hands To Your Ears” is a sonic time capsule cataloguing a journey of the new age musical interface MiMu Gloves (a gestral instrument), which lula.xyz, as an early adopter, has been spearheading its development throughout her live performances these past 5 years. “From My Hands To Your Ears”, opens wide a window into a universe of liberated truths. It is a warm and welcoming ‘Hello’ from an artist who’s songs are akin to a young blossoming bonsai tree. And pays homage to a creative process and the introduction of a musical ancestry that will take you on a journey through The Jazzy streets of Dalston, a Habesha+NYLon tribal & electro grit landscape, a New Orleans “Doo Wop” road trip to Mars and an Infectious a cappella between somewhere, nowhere and everywhere.
Synthestruct
Ginger Leigh, a.k.a Synthestruct, is a multi-disciplined artist who works with sensors and data to create real-time, multi-modal experiences that explore how we connect with and understand the world around us. Sound being a core topic of interest in her work, she examines the relationship between sound and its visual embodiment through live performances and installations.
Through creating interactive audio and visual systems for her performances, she explores how movement, gesture, and other methods of interactive control can be used in intuitive ways to create real-time dynamic compositions. She utilizes the MiMu gloves to control all of the live audio and visual elements during her full dome performance "Viscerality" and ARTECHOUSE DC performance "VAST", as well as using the gloves in a number of other creative ways including controlling lighting, and composing music through her modular synths.
Suren Seneviratne
Suren Seneviratne (My Panda Shall Fly / Petit Oiseau) is a Sri Lankan born musician and DJ working in visual art, new media, sound and text. Since 2011, his prolific musical output of original music and remixes has garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, FACT and Boiler Room while collaborations with video artists like Werkflow, Daniel Swan and Yoshi Sodeoka has cemented his position as one of the most eclectic new artistic voices in recent years.
Recently, Seneviratne has gone on to work on various projects lending his expertise both as lead creative or behind-the-scenes. Clients include Breakin' Convention at Sadlers Wells, Google VR, Gucci, Red Bull Music, Novation and Camden Roundhouse.
Dyskinetic
Kris Halpin, aka Dyskinetic, is a songwriter, singer and pioneering performer. Most commonly known for playing MiMu Gloves, Kris was the first artist to use MiMu Gloves as an accessibility tool. Facing increasing disabling physical barriers to music making, Kris worked with Drake Music and MiMu to explore the accessibility potential of the gloves. Kris’ work happens at the intersection between music, technology and disability, and has received worldwide acclaim.
Kris has toured extensively with the gloves throughout the UK and Europe, as well as in the US and Japan. A widely respected and highly visible Disabled artist and Disability activist, Kris has worked closely with organisations such as the BBC, PRS Foundation, VSA: Kennedy Center, Independent Venue Week & the British Council to amplify the conversation around music and disability.
A graduate of the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Kris has also used his visual background to inform the aesthetics of access concepts that the gloves naturally serve.
MaryLiz Bender
MaryLiz Bender is an artist, musician, programmer, and space age storyteller. As co-founder and Creative Director of Cosmic Perspective, she designs space exploration films, immersive AR and VR experiences, and multimedia show productions. All of her work aims to shift perspective by bringing new awareness to the vast Cosmos in which we live, and which lives in us.
As a MI.MU "Glover," she creates electronic music under her new monicker “Annu,” and with her band Twin Limb. By combining her passions of space exploration, music, and technology, she uses the gloves to look toward the future and ask, "How will we take our humanity with us to the stars?" Having always revered the gloves as the perfect technology for space travel, she is working with NASA to research what new art forms and music may arise when astronauts use the gloves in the space environment. They are aiming to send the gloves with an astronaut to the International Space Station in early 2022.
Imogen Heap
MiMU Gloves founder, Imogen Heap is a self-produced British composer and recording artist for 25 years, Imogen Heap has released five solo albums, another as one half of Frou Frou and collaborated with countless and varied artists including Taylor Swift, Nitin Sawhney, Deadmau5, Eric Whitacre, Jeff Beck and Jon Hopkins.
Heap, recognised as an artist's artist, has won two Grammys and an Ivor Novello award. In recognition of her pioneering work at the intersection of music and tech, Heap has a hat trick of three honorary doctorates for the gestural music-ware 'MI.MU gloves' system and recently for ’The Creative Passport’, an integrated digital ID solution, empowering music makers to be the change toward a fair and flourishing music ecosystem.
Between projects a constant for the past year is every Thursday afternoon, Imogen Q&A chats with her fans via The Listening Chair with those who subscribe to Imogenheap.app to collaborate together on Augmented Imogen, Imogen's in dev AI.
Izzi Valentine
The residency is produced and curated by Izzi Valentine. Izzi is a multidisciplinary artist and designer, working from a neuroqueer perspective. They are also an e-textiles technician at MiMU and an assistant to filmpro's Artistic Director Caglar Kimyoncu, which organically drew filmpro and MiMU together for this project.
Behind these scenes, The team also included:
MiMu Gloves
MiMU Gloves are a wearable motion-based musical instrument / controller. As a new and evolving technology, there is massive scope for innovation in how the gloves can be used, and we were excited to see how resident artists took their gloves in new directions during their residency.
The gloves uses a range of sensors to translate gestures and motions into digital signals, meaning simple movements can lead to complex musical compositions, or can control various kinds of software or hardware.
MiMU Gloves are the brainchild of musician Imogen Heap. Since 2010, the MiMU team and Imogen have worked towards new expressive ways of composing and performing music. The first glove prototypes were forged in the nurturing space of Imogen Heap’s musical experimentations, and tested on stage in live performances.
Since 2014 a small group of musicians have been using early versions of the MiMU Gloves across the world for a wide range of different artistic projects. These include vocalists, classical pianists, beat boxers, guitarists, artists controlling live visual projections.
Made possible with support from
MiMU Gloves, filmpro, Ableton, Arts Council England, PRS Foundation.
