ABOUT US

The Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI) is an organisation that makes sound and music with people and places to play from bikes ridden by you the cyclist.

Over twelve years of international projects we have developed the sonic bike to do this.  A bike with two mounted speakers on the front and GPS receiver and Raspberry Pi computer on the back. With our bespoke mapping software, different sounds are linked to different places meaning that the interactive music played by the bike changes dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they pedal.

Not an app and free of the internet, the sonic bike creates an outdoor listening experience for everyone – reaching new audiences on the street or hillside, far beyond the confines of concert halls and galleries.

Established by Kaffe Matthews and Dave Griffiths in 2013, the BRI works collectively from Berlin and Cornish labs, undertaking multiple projects annually, each one realising new site-specific music made through residential collaborations with producers and communities.  Politics, time, cycling possibilities, architecture and finances all bare on each project, making them utterly contemporary.  Alongside, we run local workshops in sonic bike making and open source development, all information of which is shared online.  These projects are resulting in the growth of independent sonic cycling hubs worldwide – currently in London, Finland, Houston, Brussels, Berlin and Magdeburg.

Discover the original concept to the sonic bike.

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PEOPLE

BRI artists and coders have interdisciplinary expertise with all age ranges and abilities, able to design with children or deliver lectures at cutting edge conference, industry or community centre. Audio awareness, listening and music making across all genres and abilities is encouraged and supported.

  • Kaffe Matthews

    Awarded sound artist and composer Kaffe Matthews was born in Essex, England and lives and works from Berlin.  Since 1990 she has made and performed new electro-acoustic music worldwide with a variety of things and places such as violin, theremin, wild salmon, Scottish weather, NASA scientists, bicycles, hammerhead sharks, school children, desert stretched wires and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

  • Lisa Hall

    Lisa Hall is a London based sound artist exploring urban environments using audio interventions and performative actions. Interrupting behaviour and questioning design, these works aim to make space for something new. Techniques include hijacking headphones, hiding speakers in trees, ringing bells online, writing architectural plans, drawing blue prints and blowing bubbles in other people’s gardens.

  • Dave Griffiths

    With an early education in weaving, bell ringing and 8 bit computers Dave Griffiths hopes for a future with more long term thinking, and attempts to contribute via the improbable connexion of games design, computer languages for livecoding performance, the reuse and reverse engineering of games hardware and working with artists, biologists, robotics engineers and psychologists to bring this to public attention in various ways.

  • Sukandar Kartadinata
    Sukandar Kartadinata

    Sukandar crafts modern musical instruments made from code and microchips, as well as the more traditional wood or brass. He is ever curious to tackle the multifarious tech problems musicians and artists throw at him, and has recently picked up his own guitar playing again. After he brought sound to electric cars in a recent project, it is now time for superior vehicles.

  • Federico Visi

    Researcher, composer, and performer, Federico holds a PhD on music and body movement from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research, University of Plymouth, UK. His research interests include gesture in music, motion-sensing technologies, machine learning, and embodied interaction. He has presented his research at several international conferences, and his work as a performer is centred on the use of body movement and physiological signals in electronic music. He is currently based in Berlin.

  • Tom Keene

    An artist, researcher and programmer, Tom seeks out marginal and often obscure technological objects to work with. He selects technology that transforms and amplifies the social relations of our everyday lives. Objects of interest for Tom have been automated vacuum cleaners, municipal databases, wireless protocol, algorithms, individual electrical components, mobile devices, cloud servers, biological and environmental sensors.

  • Monse Lozano

    An electrical engineer and musician based in Houston, Monse is committed to bringing awareness to engineering through art. This passion led him to create a non-profit organisation Vampire Squid Labs and to join the BRI, all in addition to his job at NASA Johnson Space Centre. He hopes that sharing a creative use of engineering through art will inspire individuals and communities to learn, conceptualise and create.

  • Dan Hayward

    A mobile bike mechanic proudly serving South Birmingham and beyond.

  • Cameron Jarvis
    Cameron Jarvis

    Cameron is a cycle mechanic with over 10 years industry experience, and a background in everything from Animation to Silversmithing. Having worked in various local shops over the years honing his mechanical skills Cameron set up his own venture, Romance Cycles in 2015. Pooling all his pent up creative energy and collected skills into bespoke bicycle frames, and other new and exciting vehicles.

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