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The eighth Whitehead Lecture of autumn term 2012 will be given by Frédéric Bevilacqua. Frédéric is 
the head of the Real Time Musical Interactions team at IRCAM in Paris.

An abstract for the lecture and short biography for the speaker are appended below.

The lecture will take place at 4pm on Wednesday 5th December in room 256 of the Richard Hoggart 
Building, Goldsmiths College  


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Motion, Sound, and Interaction
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ABSTRACT: I will present an overview of research performed by the Real-Time Musical Interactions 
Team of IRCAM (Paris). We have developed various methods and systems that allow for the interaction
between gesture, motion and digital media. This research has been influenced by sustained 
collaborations with musicians/composers and dancers/choreographers. For example, the study of 
musician gestures allowed us to formalize key concepts about continuous gesture control, movement 
segmentation and co-articulation. This guided us in designing various real-time gesture analysis 
systems using machine learning techniques, such as the gesture follower that enables gesture 
synchronization with sound synthesis. Concrete applications concerning augmented musical 
instruments, new music interfaces and music games will be described. Finally, recent research 
on sensori-motor learning will be presented, which opens novel perspectives for the design of 
musical interfaces and medical applications.
           
BRIEF BIO: Frédéric Bevilacqua is the head of the Real Time Musical Interactions team at IRCAM - 
Institute for Music/AcousticResearch and Coordination in Paris. His research interests concern 
gestural interactive systems and interfaces for music expression. He holds a master degree in 
physics and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Optics  from EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technolgy in 
Lausanne). He also studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and has participated 
in several music and media arts projects. From 1999 to 2003 he conducted research at the Beckman 
Laser Institute, University of California Irvine. He joined IRCAM in October 2003 as researcher 
on gesture analysis for music and performing arts.