WHAT: Join QUT's Robotronica press conference showcasing key international guests, including the world's first certified cyborg, international artist Neil Harbisson, and world-leading robot-and-human musical collaboration Shimon Robot & Friends.
Shimon Robot & Friends will perform in Australia for the first time at QUT's Robotronica spectacular. Shimon plays the marimba, improvising jazz numbers with its human band members including Jason Barnes, whose robotic prosthetic arm makes him the world's fastest drummer - literally.
Media are invited to a special musical demonstration and Robotronica press conference on Thursday 20 August, involving:
•Shimon robot
•Shimon's creator Professor Gil Weinberg
•drummer Jason Barnes
•Neil Harbisson.
VISION OPPORTUNITIES:
•performance by Shimon Robot & Friends
•demonstrations of Shimon and Jason's musical abilities
•demonstrations of Neil Harbisson's cybernetic implant that allows him to perceive colours as sounds. His equipment can play the sounds back to you through a speaker.
•interviews with Professor Weinberg, Jason Barnes, Neil Harbisson, Robotronica creative director Jonathan Parsons and Robotronica finale co-director and chief robot builder Professor Jonathan Roberts.
WHEN: 1pm Thursday 20 August
WHERE: Gardens Theatre (X Block), QUT Gardens Point campus, Brisbane City. See map.
MORE INFO:
Imagine a future in which music is improvised and performed by humans and robots together, sharing the stage, combining the best of their skills. That future is already here and world-leading Shimon Robot & Friends is spearheading this new era. The band has stunned audiences from Washington DC to Munich, and now Brisbane residents have the opportunity to enjoy a musical performance that will truly be beyond the realm of anything they have ever experienced before.
Professor Weinberg is the founding director of Georgia Tech's Centre for Music Technology in Atlanta USA, an international centre for creative and technological research in music that is redefining the way we create, perform, listen to and consume music.
Jason Barnes' robotic drumming prosthesis has two drumsticks powered by motors. While the first stick is controlled both physically by the musicians' arms and electronically using electromyography (EMG) muscle sensors, the other stick "listens" to the music and improvises.
Neil Harbisson was born with a form of extreme colour blindness; he can see only in greys. In 2004 he collaborated with Adam Montandon to create a cybernetic system permanently implanted in his head which allows him to perceive colours as sounds - the busier the colour pattern, the more notes that play in his head.
PARKING:
Attending media should:
•drive to the back entrance to QUT - behind the Parliamentary Annex building
•stay in the left lane and drive up to the yellow boom gate
•press the buzzer and tell the person on the other end that you are ABC TV here to for a media story
•the person on the other end will direct you where to park.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Kate Haggman, QUT Media, 07 3138 0358, or kate.haggman@qut.edu.au
After hours Rose Trapnell, QUT Media team leader, 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au
