We are pleased to announce the keynote speakers for NIME2014:

• Hiroshi Ishii

  Associate Director of MIT Media Lab, Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Co-Director of Things That Think and Head of Tangible Media Group

• Laetitia Sonami

  Esteemed sound artist, performer and teacher.  A regular collaborator at STEIM she will be performing on her signature instrument, The Lady’s Glove at our Gala Dinner/concert.

The keynotes are free, and open to the public.
Doors 7:30pm, cash bar, 8:00pm start
Wednesday 2nd July in The Great Hall on Goldsmiths campus.

 Hiroshi Ishii

Photo Credit: Junichi Otsuki

Tangible Media focuses upon the design of seamless interfaces between humans, digital information, and the physical environment. Hiroshi Ishii, a Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, joined the MIT Media Laboratory in October 1995. He founded the Tangible Media Group to pursue a new vision of Human Computer Interaction (HCI): “Tangible Bits.” His group seeks to change the “painted bits” of GUIs to “tangible bits” by giving physical form to digital information. Currently, the Tangible Media Group is working to evolve their vision of “Tangible Bits” to “Radical Atoms.”

Prof. Ishii and his team have presented their vision of “Tangible Bits” at a variety of academic, industrial design, and artistic venues (including ACM SIGCHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, Industrial Design Society of America, AIGA, Ars Electronica, Centre Pompidou, and Victoria and Albert Museum) emphasizing that the development of tangible interfaces requires the rigors of both scientific and artistic review.  A display of many of the group’s projects took place at the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Tokyo in the summer of 2000.  The following year, a three-year-long exhibition titled “Get in Touch” featured the Tangible Media group’s work at Ars Electronica Center (Linz, Austria) from September 2001 through August 2004.  Professor Ishii was elected to CHI Academy by ACM SIGCHI in 2006.

Prior to joining the MIT Media Lab from 1988-1994, Prof. Ishii led a CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) research group at NTT Human Interface Laboratories Japan, where his team invented TeamWorkStation and ClearBoard. Prior to founding the Tangible Media Group, Prof. Ishii was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Canada from 1993-1994. He has also received several degrees in engineering, including a B.E. degree in electronic engineering, M.E. and Ph.D degrees in computer engineering from Hokkaido University, Japan, in 1978, 1980, and 1992, respectively.

Laetitia Sonami

Photo Credit: Andre Hoekzema

Composer, performer, and sound installation artist Laetitia Sonami was born in France and settled in the United States in 1975 to pursue her interest in the emerging field of electronic music. She studied with Eliane Radigue, Joel Chadabe, Robert Ashley and David Behrman.

Sonami’s work combines text, music and “found sound” from the world, in compositions which have been described as “performance novels. Her signature instrument, the Lady’s Glove, is fitted with a vast array of sensors which track the slightest motion of her enigmatic dance: with it Sonami can create performances where her movements can shape the music and in some instances visual environments. The lady’s glove has become a fine instrument which challenges notions of technology and virtuosity.

Sonami’s sound installations combine audio and kinetic elements embedded in ubiquitous objects such as light bulbs, rubber gloves, bags and more recently toilet plungers. She collects electrical wire and embroids them in walls.

Sonami gives extensive workshops and classes. She tries to familiarize and enthuse students to adapting old technologies and new media to the creative process and thus expand their field of imagination and play.

Sonami has been performing in numerous festivals across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and China, among which the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Bourges Music Festival in France, the Sonambiente Festival in Berlin, the Interlink festival in Japan, Bang-on-a Can, The Kitchen and Other Minds, S.F.

Awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts (2002), Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award (2000), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2000), Studio Pass-Harvestworks residency (2001) and a Creative Work Fund award (2000) for a collaboration with Nick Bertoni and the Tinkers Workshop.

Sonami lives in Oakland, California and is guest lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Milton Avery MFA program at Bard College.