Walker Smith- International Computer Music Conference

Walker spent Summer 2025 as a guest researcher at the Ligeti Zentrum in Hamburg as part of TEC's Graduate Research & Internship Program in Germany (GRIP).

Image

Thanks to the support of The Europe Center and the Stanford Club of Germany, I was able to travel to Hamburg in May to present my research and creative work at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), one of the premier international conferences for computer music research and composition. The conference was hosted this year at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, and was co-organized by the Ligeti Zentrum, the institute at which I did my GRIP research last summer.

At the conference, I presented my “Magic Alchemical Drum Set,” a self-playing drum set that I created during my research stay at the Ligeti Zentrum last summer. I presented this project in the Innovation Showcase, a new category implemented at ICMC that combines a poster, a live demo of a new technology, and a paper published in the conference proceedings.

I also presented an overview of my research at the “Science Slam,” which was part of the new Off-ICMC category that promoted works for general public audiences.1 The Science Slam presentations were 10-minute presentations for a mixed audience of conference attendees and locals of Harburg. After each presentation, the audience ranked each presentation on a scale from 1 to 10. I wasn’t familiar with this kind of thing, but apparently Science Slams are fairly popular now in Europe.

The Science Slam was a wonderful experience for me. The aim of the presentations was to share high-level scientific research to a general audience using simple language, incorporating humor and creativity. After seeing my lecture performance2 last summer at the Ligeti Zentrum, the Off-ICMC organizers asked me to contribute to the Science Slam, as they felt that my unique presentation style would be a perfect fit for the event.

Having the pressure to deliver a condensed 10-minute summary of my research (which, last summer, I made an entire 90-minute show about) forced me to perfect the delivery and choose which content was essential. I was very proud of what I was able to present, and was very enthused by the positive response from the audience. I was even able to work in some jokes for the German crowd, including making up a new German word.

In my presentation, I discuss how I convert light waves into sound waves, and make the joke that I use a “specialized scientific device” to do this. I then reveal this to be a rainbow xylophone, which I call the “Light Soundinator 3000.” I joked that I couldn’t figure out how to translate this into German, but my German colleagues said that German already has a word for such a device:

Hyperultrasuperwissenschaftlichquantenmechanischmagischphotoakustisch-erspektralfarblichtwellenzumusikklangtransmutationsapparatmaschineninstrument-endings

In my presentation, I also pronounced the full word, the audience applauded when I made it all the way through. 

Photo 1: My German translation of my “Light Soundinator” device. (Credit: Daria Radler)

At the ten-minute mark of each presentation, a timekeeper in the back of the audience yelled “SHTOP!” After this, audience members held up cards ranking each presentation on a scale of 1 to 10. I was delighted to see very high numbers after my presentation. including a 9.9, (photo 2) and was even more excited to be selected as the winner of the Science Slam (photos 3-8)! The video of the Science Slam presentation is currently being edited, but I will share it when they finish!

Photo 2: Audience votes after my presentation (with one vote for 9,9 out of 10!). (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 3: Me holding my Science Slam trophy alongside the Off-ICMC organizers (left to right: Christian Tschriner, Joana Welteke, and Nadine Schwalb, holding a perfect 10,0 score card). (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 4: Another photo with the Off-ICMC organizers, and with my score humorously increased to 10,9 (out of 10). The slide in the back shows the title of the Science Slam: Strg+Alt+Musik (Control+Alt+Music): Science Slam on Music in our Digital Times. The slide also shows my name as the winner, but my rainbow top-hat is obscuring it. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 5: Accepting my Science Slam trophy on stage, congratulated by the other participants. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 6: During the award ceremony, I received a heartfelt congratulations from Victor Gelling, who also gave a fantastic Science Slam presentation and a fantastic performance later in the conference. Last summer, I had the opportunity to give a guest lecture to my advisor Prof. Georg Hajdu’s seminar at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Victor was in attendance at my seminar, and we had some very interesting conversations afterwards. It was a treat to see him present his work as well. After the presentation, he remarked that “Roy G. Biv is unbeatable!” (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 7: Me holding the Science Slam award, an adorable handmade trophy with the computer keys for Strg+Alt+MUSIK. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 8: Showing off my Science Slam trophy, but this time with sunglasses. (Credit: Daria Radler)

On a personal level, it was also a fantastic opportunity to see my friends and colleagues from the Ligeti Zentrum again. I really enjoyed my time there and it was so nice to see everyone again. My American colleague from the Ligeti Zentrum said, “You really need to come back. We all miss you, the whole place really lit up when you were here last summer.” This absolutely warmed my heart—I feel like I have a second family in Hamburg. His partner, who is German, also complemented my German speaking, noting that it had significantly improved since last summer. I was also very happy to hear this, as I have been taking speaking and reading courses with Prof. Paul Nissler, and I recently passed my doctoral foreign language reading exam in German. I plan to continue studying German. It was great to speak some German while I attended the conference, conversing with the other conference attendees from Germany and Austria.

There was an article released about the Off-ICMC, which mentions my Science Slam presentation (and victory!).3 The Ligeti Zentrum also sent me a recent article about my research last summer.4 As a sidenote, when I clicked on the link, the page loaded in German, and I was delighted that I could understand most of the text in German!

The LIGETI Zentrum is an (admittedly somewhat forced) acronym for Laboratories for Innovation and General-Audience Edification via the Transfer of Ideas,5 and the article highlights the “Transfer of Ideas” part of my residency last summer—the input from haptics researchers leading to my interest in coupling electronically-synthesized sounds to physical objects, combining electronic sound with acoustic resonances. This manifested in my “Magic Alchemical Drum Set,” which I was able to present during the conference’s Innovation Showcase (photo 9). This portion was unfortunately not open to the public, but it was well-attended by conference participants, and I got fantastic feedback from other researchers. Later in the summer, I met some of the same researchers at a different music technology conference in London, who remembered my work and proposed potential collaborations.

I presented the drum set as an interactive installation, and also as a published conference paper.6 It was also a fantastic opportunity to see the other projects in the Innovation Showcase, some by my colleagues last summer, and some by other researchers I hadn’t met yet. I really felt that the “Transfer of Ideas” was achieved to an exceptional degree, and the mutual inspiration from everyone else’s projects was incredibly exciting.

I also had a chance to reconnect with Prof. Dr. Georg Hajdu—the conference chair. co-director of the Ligeti Zentrum, and my research mentor last summer. It was great to see him again and show him the work I had continued on my projects that I started last summer (photos 10-11).

The Science Slam and Magic Alchemical Drum Set presentation at the conference have continued to inform my work. Since the conference, I have presented my drum set installation in a concert at Gray Area in San Francisco,7 and at “Fountain Fest,” a new music festival at the famous Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was delighted that the festival used my photo as the centerpiece of their promotional poster (Photo 12). For both of these events, the experience of setting up the drum set installation at ICMC (which was my first time setting up the installation outside of my research lab at Stanford CCRMA) was invaluable. I learned valuable skills about travelling with and troubleshooting an installation like this on the road, giving me the confidence and experience to continue travelling with this installation in the future. At Fountain Fest, I also presented a show to over 50 K-8th grade students, in which I employed many things from my Science Slam presentation. As I continue touring my installations and performances, I will always reflect on these initial and invaluable experiences at ICMC.

Overall, I immensely enjoyed my visit to Hamburg and having the opportunity to share my research with academics and the general public, as well as reconnect with my friends and colleagues from last summer. All of my Ligeti Zentrum colleagues are excited about the possibility of me returning for another research stay, and I hope to go back in the near future!

Photo 9: Standing in front of the makeshift advertisement I made directing conference attendees to my magic drum set (which you can see glowing in the large auditorium to the right). Also featured, my “co-performer” ssssssspectrum the Rainboa constrictor. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 10: Me standing next to Georg Hajdu, my mentor from last summer and the ICMC conference chair. The difference in dress code between “fully rainbow” and “traditional German all-black” is clearly visible. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 11: Me and Georg, experimenting with a cooler pose. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 12: Fountain Fest 2026 photo, featuring “Roy G. Biv” in the center.

Supplemental Photos from the Science Slam

Photo 13: Still from my presentation (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 14: Being introduced by the Science Slam moderator. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 15: Still from my presentation. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 16: Still from my presentation, side view. (Credit: Daria Radler)

Photo 17: Presenting the sound of the spectrum of oxygen (sauerstoff). For this, I asked the audience to imagine the sound in their heads before I played it, and then asked them to raise their hands if they got it roughly correct. (Credit: Daria Radler)