MAPPER – A Symposium on Music Acoustics for Performance Preparation and the Engagement with Repertoire in Live-Electronics
at Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (MDW')’s Department of Music Acoustics (IWK).
Event: https://iwk.mdw.ac.at/mapper-symposium/
Nyokabi Kariũki and Astrid Bin: A Wearable Instrument for "Meditations on the Sounding African Body"
Nyokabi Kariũki (KE) is a Kenyan composer, performer and researcher whose work engages with the complexities of African identity, particularly in its hybridity and fragmentation following decades of colonial violence on the continent and the lingering aftereffects. She has been interested in what it means to make sound with the African body via speech, song, language, and now, with the body itself, researching various body percussion practices found across several African and African diasporic musics, where the lines between movement, dance and music are blurred.
Through this sonic exploration and an initial collaboration with Vienna-based live-electronics researcher Dr. Alex Hofmann (DE), Kariuki has now formed a collaboration with instrument designer and music technologist Dr Astrid Bin (DE/UK) to create a wearable instrument built for a performance that explores these themes. Using a blend of synthetic and organic materials, traditional and high tech fabrication techniques and an embedded sensing network, this instrument aims to blend cutting-edge fabrication, material innovation, and modern aesthetics with Kariuki’s composition that is working to nod towards the longstanding and inextricable relationship between the Black body and sound, orienting itself towards the future while fully acknowledging the present, and the past.
From the website:
Event Dates: July 1st–2nd, 2025
Event Location: Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Vienna
About
Live-electronic instruments are performed in many regions around the world, and there are dedicated music scenes in both academic and independent circles. Recently, live-electronics have been integrated into a growing number of academic curricula internationally, including mdw.
Based on long-term experience in music acoustics and performance science research at the Department of Music Acoustics – Wiener Klangstil at mdw, as well as the artistic research perspectives gained through the FWF-PEEK project 'Études for Live-Electronics', this symposium is fostering an interdisciplinary dialogue between practitioners, researchers, and teachers in music acoustics, music performance, and composition on the topic of new instruments, new interfaces and repertoire in live-electronic music performance.
This symposium brings together experts from Asia, South America, Europe and Africa to facilitate knowledge exchange through a variety of lecture performances, group discussions and live presentations, addressing questions about what works and what does not in the current performance practice. The aim is to discuss how technology may shape musical thinking and to develop a critical discourse on the power dynamics in this field, which combines knowledge of the arts, engineering and science. Together, they will reflect on acquiring skills for performing with live-electronics, their choice of repertoire and its impact on teaching.
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