Evelyn Ficarra

Senior Lecturer in Music, Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Opera and Music (CROMT) at the University of Sussex. Evelyn is a composer, sound artist and educator. Her work finds expression across a range of forms including music theatre, multi media, installation, dance, film and the concert hall. Primary research interests include: investigations into sound objects in different contexts (theatre, installation); electroacoustic and multi-disciplinary improvisation, and robot opera. Evelyn started the robot opera research project at CROMT in 2017, exploring issues of embodiment, performance and vocality through the lens of radical technical innovation in opera. She has recently made presentations on this project with collaborator Tim Hopkins at the AI Opera IA conference in Barcelona in October 2021, and at Brighton Digital Festival.

Chris Kiefer

Senior Lecturer in Music Technology, Experimental Music Technologies Lab (EMUTE) at Sussex University. Chris is a computer-musician and musical instrument designer, specialising in musician-computer interaction, physical computing, and machine learning. He performs with custom-made instruments including malleable foam interfaces, touch screen software, interactive sculptures and a modified self-resonating cello. His work concentrates on machine learning and complex systems in new instrument design. He co-runs the AHRC Feedback Musicianship Network.

Tim Hopkins

Senior Research Fellow in Music, Senior Research Fellow Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre. Hopkins has a background in opera, music theatre and theatre direction, scenic design, moving image, performing, in around 100 projects over a 30 year period. He first joined Sussex in 2007 as AHRC Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts. He is interested in opera and music theatre as a technological adventure and societal forum, researching new forms in performance, experimentation and collaboration, exploring how the art-form responds to technologies and their meanings. His own work often links historic and current practice, new spaces technology has created and the evolving artistic toolbox, to explore the impacts of technological transformation itself - cultural, emotional, political - and imagine possible futures for opera.

Kıvanç Tatar

Kıvanç Tatar is an artist/technologist/researcher working at the intersection of Music, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Interactive Arts, Design, and Human-Computer Interaction. His research in musical AI includes multimodal applications that combine music with movement computation, or visual arts. His computational approaches have been integrated into musical performances, interactive artworks, and immersive environments including virtual reality. Tatar’s interdisciplinary work has been exhibited across the globe; including the notable events of the cultural program at Rio Olympics 2016, the Ars Electronica Festival 2017 and 2020, CHI 2018, Mutek Montreal 2018, and Contemporary Istanbul PlugIn 2019. He is an Assistant Professor in Interactive AI at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.