I read somewhere (but never stored the link) that people should add a more lengthy description in their trip notes (or vacation messages or whatever people call it) and decided to try it. Usually, I have only added a very brief message about when I return, but I think the point of adding a longer one is to explain why one cannot be as accessible as one usually may be....
I have used “barefoot shoes” for more than a decade. Only occasionally, I wear something else. It started with a pair of Vibram five fingers, but after family complaints about the weird-looking toes, I moved on to various types of “normal” minimalistic shoes, such as the ones from Vivo Barefoot. Yesterday, I wore a pair of Birkenstock sandals and immediately noticed how strange it felt when I started my daily standstill session....
I have previously written about the coauthorship exercise that we use at RITMO workshops when we have new groups of doctoral and postdoctoral fellows. Another concept we use from time to time is what we call a “confession workshop.” This builds on the fact that a researcher’s life is often filled with rejections and discouraging feedback. Too often, we only talk about successful stories, giving the skewed impression that there are no challenges in academia....
I have previously written about the different publication cultures at RITMO. This includes different coauthorship traditions between our disciplines: musicology, psychology, and informatics. Our approach to avoid conflicts over (co)authorship is to discuss it often. We also have an exercise that we run occasionally at retreats. Since this may be a topic of interest to others, here I share the case we have developed. We typically allocate an hour for the exercise and split people into small groups (4–6 people) from different disciplines....
I am happy to announce a new online course from RITMO: Pupillometry – The Eye as a Window Into the Mind. This is the third so-called Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) I have been part of making, following Motion Capture and Music Moves. I am excited to get it started on Monday, 16 January. Discover the applications of pupillometry research Pupillometry is a relatively new research method within the sciences, and it has wide-ranging applications within psychology, neuroscience, and beyond....
Last week, Ulf Holbrook defended his dissertation at RITMO. I was in charge of streaming the disputation, and here are some reflections on the technical setup and streaming. Zoom Webinars vs YouTube Streaming I have previously written about running a hybrid disputation using a Zoom webinar. We have used variations of that setup also for other events. For example, last year, we ran RPPW as a hybrid conference. There are some benefits of using Zoom, particularly when having many presenters....
I wrote up the final report on the project MICRO - Human Bodily Micromotion in Music Perception and Interaction before Christmas. Now I finally got around to wrapping up the project pages. With the touch of a button, the project’s web page now says “completed”. But even though the project is formally over, its results will live on. Aims and objectives The MICRO project sought to investigate the close relationships between musical sound and human bodily micromotion....
I have been running the disputation of Guilherme Schmidt Câmara today. At RITMO, we have accepted that “hybrid mode” will be the new normal. So also for disputations. Fortunately, we had already many years of experience with video conferencing before the corona crisis hit. We have also gained lots of experience by running the Music, Communication and Technology master’s programme for some years. In another blog post, I summarized some experiences of running our first hybrid disputation....
There are many ways to run conferences. Here is a summary of how we ran the Rhythm Production and Perception Workshop 2021 at RITMO this week. RPPW is called a workshop, but it is really a full-blown conference. Almost 200 participants enjoy 100 talks and posters, 2 keynote speeches, and 3 music performances spread across 4 days. A group photo of RPPW2021 participants, taken in a Zoom Room before the last poster session....
We presented the installation Strings On-Line at NIME 2020. It was supposed to be a physical installation at the conference to be held in Birmingham, UK. Due to the corona crisis, the conference went online, and we decided to redesign the proposed physical installation into an online installation instead. The installation ran continuously from 21-25 July last year, and hundreds of people “came by” to interact with it. I finally got around to edit a short (1-minute) video promo of the installation:...