jim murphy
sonic arts and engineering

portfolio

a list of selected works

θr

jim murphy + mo h zareei, 2015

satellites

with good company arts and rnzb, 2014

nudge

2014

swivel + swivel 2

2012-2014

kritaanjli

jim murphy + ajay kapur, 2013

a life of metal

2013

bacchus triptych

2013

bacchus

2012

metal and motors

with rodrigo restrepo, 2010

about



Jim Murphy is an artist and researcher working at the boundary between mechatronics, luthiery, and installation-oriented sculpture. Jim was born in Taos, New Mexico and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2010 at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. While at CalArts, Jim studied extensively with musical roboticist Ajay Kapur and digital signal processing expert Martijn Zwartjes and worked with computer music notables Perry Cook and Mark Trayle. He also studied under sound sculptor Trimpin, whose works have inspired Jim to pursue kinetic sound art in all forms.

Jim continued his studies in Wellington, New Zealand. In 2014, he received a PhD for his interdisciplinary studies at Victoria University of Wellington's New Zealand School of Music and School of Engineering and Computer Science. His doctoral work focused on the creation and evaluation of an array of mechatronic instruments endowed with greater degrees of freedom (and musically expressive affordances) than is typical of many mechatronic instruments. During his studies, he established an interdisciplinary style of work that he continues to pursue.

After finishing his PhD, Jim has taught at the New Zealand School of Music as a visiting lecturer, teaching computer programming, embedded systems design, and interactive art topics to first-year through fourth-year undergraduates. Concurrently with his teaching role at the New Zealand School of Music, Jim teaches as a guest lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Engineering and Computer Science, participating in the school's Sonic Engineering Lab for Creative Technology and teaching data acquisition and embedded systems design. Jim is interested in creating and teaching the interdisciplinary practice of music technology, drawing from engineering and music-related bodies of knowledge to further the state of the art.

Artistically, Jim continues to create kinetic sound sculptures (a selection of his works may be viewed in the Portfolio section of this site). His recent works focus on the act of obtaining unexpected sounds from objects through the use of mechatronic actuation and excitation. In 2015, Jim founded new media project Technical Earth with artist Mo H. Zareei.

publications

refereed journal and conference publications & theses

thesis

J. Murphy, "Expressive Musical Robots: Building, Evaluating, and Interfacing with an Ensemble of Mechatronic Instruments," Ph.D. Thesis, New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington and Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, 2014.


referred journal publications

J. Murphy, P. Mathews, J. McVay, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Expressive Robotic Guitars: Developments in Musical Robotics for Chordophones," Computer Music Journal, Spring 2015, Vol. 39, No. 1, Pages 59-73. MIT Press.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Musical Robotics in a Loudspeaker World: Developments in Alternative Approaches to Localization and Spatialization," Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 22, pp. 41-48. December 2012. MIT Press.

A. Kapur, M. Darling, D. Diakopoulos, J. Murphy, J. Hochenbaum, O. Vallis, C. Bahn, "The Machine Orchestra: An Ensemble of Human Laptop Performers and Robotic Musical Instruments," Computer Music Journal, Winter 2011, Vol. 35, No. 4, Pages 49-63


referred publications appearing in conference proceedings

2015

J. Long, J. W. Murphy, D. A. Carnegie, and A. Kapur, "A Methodology for Evaluating Robotic Striking Mechanisms for Musical Contexts," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, June 2015.

J. McVay, D. A. Carnegie, and J. W. Murphy, "An Overview of MechBass: A Four String Robotic Bass Guitar," Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA), Queenstown, New Zealand, February 2015.

J. Long, J. W. Murphy, D. A. Carnegie, and A. Kapur, "A Comparative Evaluation of Percussion Mechanisms for Musical Robotics Applications," Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA), Queenstown, New Zealand, February 2015.

2014

J. Murphy, P. Mathews, D. A. Carnegie, and A. Kapur, “Robot: Tune Yourself! Automatic Tuning for Musical Robotics," Proceedings for the International Conference on New Musical Interfaces for Musical Expression, London, UK, July 2014.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Little Drummer Bot: building, testing, and interfacing with a new expressive mechatronic drum system," Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Athens, Greece, September 2014.

T. Barraclough, J. Murphy, and A. Kapur, “New Open Source Interfaces for Group Based Participatory Performance of Live Electronic Music," Proceedings for the International Conference on New Musical Interfaces for Musical Expression, London, UK, July 2014.

B. Johnston, H. Dengate Thrush, J. Murphy, T. Molata, and A. Kapur, “Polus: The Design and Development of a New, Mechanically Bowed String Instrument Ensemble," Proceedings for the International Conference on New Musical Interfaces for Musical Expression, London, UK, July 2014.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Mechatronic Keyboard Music: design, evaluation, and use of a new mechatronic harmonium," Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Athens, Greece, September 2014.

J. Long, J. W. Murphy, D. A. Carnegie, and A. Kapur, "The Robotic Taishogoto: A Systems Overview and Evaluation," Proceedings of the Electronics New Zealand Conference (ENZCon), Waikato, New Zealand, November 2014.

P. Mathews, J. Murphy, D. A. Carnegie, and A. Kapur, “Tangle: A Flexible Framework for Performance with Advanced Robotic Musical Instruments," Proceedings for the International Conference on New Musical Interfaces for Musical Expression, London, UK, July 2014.

2013

B. Johnson, J. Murphy, and A. Kapur, "Designing Gestural Interfaces For Live Diffusion," Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Perth, Western Australia, August 2013.

J. Murphy, J. McVay, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Designing and Building Expressive Robotic Guitars," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Daejeon and Seoul, Korea, May 2013.

J. Murphy and A. Kapur, "Swivel: Analysis and Systems Overview of a New Robotic Guitar," Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Perth, Western Australia, August 2013.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Swivel 2: A Systems Overview and Evaluation of a New Mechatronic Slide Guitar," Proceedings of the 2013 Engineering New Zealand Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, September 2013.

2012

A. Kapur, J. Murphy, and D. A. Carnegie, "Kritaanjli: A Robotic Harmonium for Performance, Pedagogy, and Research," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 2012.

J. McVay, J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "MechBass: A Systems Overview of a New Four-Stringed Robotic Bass Guitar," Proceedings of the 2012 Electronics New Zealand Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, December 2012.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Better Drumming Through Calibration: Techniques for Pre-Performance Robotic Percussion Optimization," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 2012.

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, and D. A. Carnegie, "Interacting With Solenoid Drummers: A Quantitative Approach to Composing and Performing With Open-Loop Solenoid-Based Percussion Systems," Proceedings of Australasian Computer Music Conference, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, July 2012.

2011

A. Kapur, M. Darling, J. Murphy, J. Hochenbaum, and D. Diakopoulos, "The KarmetiK NotomotoN: A new breed of musical robot for teaching and performance," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Oslo, Norway, May 2011.

J. Murphy and A. Kapur, "The gallery as an instrument: Using remote sensing technology to interface with musical robotics," Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Music Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, July 2011.

2010

J. Murphy, A. Kapur, C. Burgin, "The Helio : A Study of Membrane Potentiometers and Long Force Sensing Resistors for Musical Interfaces," Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Sydney, Australia, May 2010.

2009

D. Diakopoulos, O. Vallis, J. Hochenbaum, J. Murphy, A. Kapur, "21st Century Electronica: MIR Techniques for Classification and Performance," Proceedings of the 2009 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, Kobe, Japan. 2009.

contact

email: jim.murphy@vuw.ac.nz



vuw: sonic engineering lab for creative technology



mailing address: jim murphy
p.o. box 600
wellington 6140
new zealand