The Pedalling Games is an interactive sonic bike piece made for Fordham Park, by Kaffe Matthews and the Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI), commissioned by BEAM @ NIME.
Visitors can come cycle a bike in and around the park, making music that will change dependant on where they go and how fast they pedal. Playing with the changing daily life of the park, Matthews has hidden sounds that will seduce visitors to ride faster, stop static, spin in circles and cruise the paths, seeking sonic treasures or pausing in shadows finding quiet spots of listening. Reflecting ever changing relationships between human nature landscape, The Pedalling Games allows players to come explore this London park to make their own composition.
The Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI) is an association that researches and collaborates to make and share music from bicycles by pedalling through landscapes alone or together. Through ten years of international projects, the BRI has developed the
sonic bike which plays music that changes dependant on where and how fast the cyclist goes through a pair of bike-mounted speakers and bespoke software to GPS system, the cyclist becoming the performer and the passers by audience. Established by Kaffe Matthews and Dave Griffiths in 2014, the BRI's collaborators for this piece include George Haworth and Lyubo Popomov.
Kaffe Matthews is an awarded sound artist composer who has been making new electro-acoustic music worldwide with things such as violin, theremin, sonic beds, NASA, sharks, children and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra since 1990. Acknowledged as a pioneer in the field of electronic improvisation and live composition, Kaffe has released 6 solo CD’s on the label
Annette Works, and continues to direct vibratory interface design project
music for bodies. Her 2004 collaboration
Weightless Animals was awarded a BAFTA, she received a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship in 2005 and an Award of Distinction, Prix Ars Electronica 2006 for the work
Sonic Bed_London. In February 2006 she was made an Honorary Professor of Music, Shanghai Music Conservatory, China and in 2009, a patron of the Galapagos shark conservation society.
