Sergi Jordà (born November 15, 1961) is a Catalan innovator, installation artist, digital musician and Associate Professor at the Music Technology Group,
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catalo ...
in Barcelona. He is best known for directing the team that invented the
Reactable
The Reactable is an electronic musical instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface that was developed within the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain by Sergi Jordà, Marcos Alonso, Martin Kaltenbru ...
. He is also a trained
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
.
Life and career
Sergi Jordà was born in Madrid, where his father was directing the film ''El Día de los Muertos'' (1961). His father was the award-winning Catalan film director and writer
Joaquín Jordà.
Sergi Jordà graduated with a BSc in Fundamental Physics from the
Universitat de Barcelona
The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...
in 1987 while also completing music studies. He was an early adopter of computer programming devoted to live computer music, and one of the pioneers of this field in Spain. During the 1990s he conducted doctorate studies in Artificial Intelligence with the
UNED
The National Distance Education University, known in Spanish as ''Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia'' (UNED), is a public research university of national scope. The university was founded in 1972 under the Ministry of Universities ...
and collaborated with renowned Catalan artists
Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca or
La Fura dels Baus
La Fura dels Baus () is a Spanish theatrical group founded in 1979 in Moià, Barcelona (Spain), known for their urban theatre, use of unusual settings and blurring of the boundaries between audience and actor. "La Fura dels Baus" in Catalan mea ...
on award-winning interactive installations (''Joan the Meat Man'' and ''Epizoo'', 1996), multimedia performances (''Afasia'', 2002), and applications for collaborative music creation over the Internet (''FMOL'', 1999–2002).
In 1999 he joined
Dr Xavier Serra who was establishing the
Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Sergi Jordà's doctorate dissertation ''Digital Lutherie'' (Jordà, 2005) at UPF-MTG set the foundations for new kinds of musical computers for performance and improvisation, based on visual feedback and spatial multiplexion. Between 2003 and 2006, together with Günter Geiger, Martin Kaltenbrunner and Marcos Alonso, Sergi Jordà developed the
Reactable
The Reactable is an electronic musical instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface that was developed within the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain by Sergi Jordà, Marcos Alonso, Martin Kaltenbru ...
: an electronic music instrument combining a tangible tabletop interface with principles derived from
modular synthesizers
Modular synthesizers are synthesizers composed of separate modules for different functions. The modules can be connected together by the user to create a patch. The outputs from the modules may include audio signals, analog control voltages, ...
such as those developed by
Bob Moog
Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthesi ...
in the early 1960s.
The Reactable was popularised by
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...
, who incorporated it into her 2007
Volta Tour. It has since been performed extensively and is on display in numerous science and art centres worldwide, including the
Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago,
Discovery World
Discovery World is a science and technology museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The museum is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of STEM majors through curiosity and creativity.
Focus
Mission
"Discovery World provides fun and educationa ...
in Milwaukee,
Discovery Place
Discovery Place Science is a science and technology museum designed for all ages, located in Uptown, Charlotte, North Carolina. The facility's exhibits and activities focus on hands-on experiences; it features a "Thinker Space" and labs, a two-st ...
in Charlotte,
Montréal Science Centre,
Science Centre Singapore
The Science Centre Singapore, previously known as Singapore Science Centre is a scientific institution in Jurong East, Singapore, specialising in the promotion of scientific and technological education for the general public. It houses over 85 ...
,
Museo Papalote del Niño in Mexico,
Santralistanbul
The SantralIstanbul ( tr, Santralİstanbul), opened in 2007, is an arts and cultural complex located at the upper end of Golden Horn in the Eyüp district of Istanbul, Turkey. The center, consisting of an energy museum, an amphitheater, concer ...
in Turkey, the
ZKM
The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...
in Germany or the
INTECH
Winchester Science Centre (previously known as INTECH) is a hands-on, interactive, science and technology centre located in Morn Hill, just outside the city of Winchester in Hampshire, England. The centre opened in 2002 after grants from Mille ...
centre in the UK. In October 2010 ''Reactable mobile'' launched for the iPhone and the iPad and within 2 weeks became top music application download in 20 countries.
Awards
Bourges 1998
Ciutat de Barcelona 1999 and 2008
2000
Beijing 2001
Arco Electrónico 1999 and 2001
Europrix 2002
* Hot Instrument of the Year
Rolling Stone Magazine 2007 (for Reactable)
MIDEM Hottest Music Biz Start-Up Award 2008 (for Reactable Systems)
* Yellow Pencil
Product Design/Public Space, D&AD Design Awards London, 2008 (for Reactable)
* Yellow pencil
Digital Installations, D&AD Design Awards London, 2008 (for Reactable)
* Golden Nica
Prix Ars Electronica 2008 (for Reactable)
Innova Barcelona, 2008 (for Reactable Systems)
Selected publications
* Jordà, S. (1991)
A Real-Time MIDI Composer and Interactive Improviser by Means of Feedback Systems In Proceedings of the 1991 International Computer Music Conference. San Francisco, CA: International Computer Music Association, 463-466.
* Jordà, S. (1996)
EPIZOO: Cruelty and Gratuitousness in Real Virtuality In Proceedings of 5CYBERCONF, 5th International Conference on Cyberspace, Madrid, Spain.
* Jordà, S. (1999)
Faust Music On Line (FMOL): An approach to Real-time Collective Composition on the Internet Leonardo Music Journal, 9, 5-12.
* Jordà, S. & Wüst, O. (2001)
FMOL: A System for Collaborative Music Composition Over the Web In Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, 537-542.
* Jordà, S. (2001)
New Musical Interfaces and New Music-making Paradigms Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2001.
* Jordà, S. (2002a)
Afasia: the Ultimate Homeric One-man-multimedia-band In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME-02), Dublin, 132-137.
* Jordà, S. (2002b)
FMOL: Toward User-Friendly, Sophisticated New Musical Instruments Computer Music Journal, 26(3), 23-39.
* Jordà, S. (2002c)
Improvising with Computers: A personal Survey (1989-2001) Journal of New Music Research, 31(1), 1-10.
* Jordà, S. (2003a)
Sonigraphical Instruments From FMOL to the reacTable*
* Jordà, S. (2003b)
Interactive music systems for everyone exploring visual feedback as a way for creating more intuitive, efficient and learnable instruments Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2003."
* Jordà, S. (2004a)
Digital Instruments and Players Part I - Efficiency and Apprenticeship Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2004."
* Jordà, S. (2004b)
Digital Instruments and Players Part II - Diversity, Freedom and Control International Computer Music Conference."
* Jordà, S. (2005a)
Multi-user Instruments Models, Examples and Promises Proceedings of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME 2005."
* Jordà, S. (2005b)
Instruments and Players: Some thoughts on digital lutherie Journal of New Music Research, 33(3), 1-21.
* Jordà, S., Kaltenbrunner, M., Geiger, G. & Bencina, R. (2005c
The reacTable* Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICM05).
* Bencina, R., Kaltenbrunner, M. & Jordà , S. (2005d
Improved Topological Fiducial Tracking in the reacTIVision System Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Projector-Camera Systems.
* Jordà, S. & Alonso, M. (2006a)
Mary had a little scoreTable* or the reacTable* goes melodic In Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on New interfaces For Musical Expression (Paris, France, June 4–08, 2006). New Interfaces For Musical Expression. IRCAM — Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 208-211.
* Jordà, S., Kaltenbrunner, M., Geiger, G. and Alonso, M. (2006b)
The reacTable: a tangible tabletop musical instrument and collaborative workbench ACM SIGGRAPH.
* Jordà, S., Geiger, G., Alonso, M. & Kaltenbrunner, M. (2007)
The reacTable: exploring the synergy between live music performance and tabletop tangible interfaces TEI '07: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, 139-146.19
* Jordà, S. (2008a)
On stage: the reactable and other musical tangibles go real Int. J. Arts and Technology, Vol. 1, Nos. 3/4, pp. 268–287.
* Gallardo, D., Julia, C.F. & Jordà, S. (2008b)
TurTan: A tangible programming language for creative exploration In 3rd IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human Computer Systems, 2008. TABLETOP 2008, pages 89–92.
* Julià, C. F. & Jordà, S. (2009)
Songexplorer: a tabletop application for exploring large collections of songs Proceedings of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR’09), Kobe, Japan.
* Jordà, S., Julià, C.F. & Gallardo, D. (2010a)
Interactive Surfaces an Tangibles, Crossroads The ACM Magazine for Students, Vol 16(4), 21-28.
* Jordà, S., Hunter, S., Pla, P., Gallardo, D., Leithinger, D., Kaufman, H., Julià, C.F. & Kaltenbrunner, M. (2010b)
Development strategies for tangible interaction on horizontal surfaces Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference, TEI’10.
* Gallardo, D. & Jordà, S. (2010c)
Tangible jukebox: back to palpable music In Proceedings of the Fourth international Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied interaction (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, January 24–27, 2010). TEI '10. ACM, New York, NY, 199-202.
External links
Music Technology Group, UPFReactableReactable performances and workshopsSoundtoys interview with Sergi Jordà
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jorda, Sergi
Living people
Academic staff of Pompeu Fabra University
1961 births