Embodied Dialogues: a site specific performance by Jenn Kirby and Iris Garrelfs at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2026 conference, 23-26 June 2026, London, UK and online.
Performed at Rich Mix, London, 24th June, 2026. Winner of the 'Best Music Performance' Award.
Embodied Dialogues is a collaboration between Jenn Kirby and Iris Garrelfs that affords a flexible performance framework using wearable digital musical instruments (DMIs). In this iteration, both collaborators perform together using sensor-based garments: a Sensor Shirt worn by Kirby and a Sensor Dress worn by Garrelfs. Touch and movement activate site-specific sound materials stored within the garments, which are projected into the space using hand-held speakers. A dialogue emerges between recorded sounds, unamplified voice, and space, resulting in an intimate, spatially situated experience that foregrounds the shared agency of performer and technology.
For this performance, the artists’ work with pre-recorded sound materials comprising spoken word, environmental field recordings, and sounds engaging with the history and heritage around the location of the performance venue, Rich Mix, London. These are juxtaposed with live improvised vocal elements that move between abstraction and articulation, responding in real-time to the recorded sounds, the performance space, and its surrounding environment.
About NIME 2026
New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) is an international conference about new musical interfaces, their artistic use and the technologies involved in building them. Researchers from all over the world share their knowledge and late breaking work during the conference. The conference started as a workshop at the CHI conference in 2001 and, since then, has been held annually around the world.
NIME 2026 will be held from June 23rd to 26th in London, UK. This year’s conference is jointly organised by the Augmented Instruments Laboratory at Imperial College London and the CHAOS Lab at Loughborough University London (LUL). The physical conference will take place in East London. The workshops and daytime programme will be held at the LUL Here East Campus in London’s Olympic Park, and the evening concerts will take place at the Rich Mix cultural centre in Shoreditch. NIME 2026 is a hybrid conference, and all authors will have the option to attend in person or online.