Assistive Technologies for Music and Art

Foreword

By Jonas Braasch

484

10 September 2013

This netowrk originated from a number of smaller projects. One of the first projects that came to my attention is the Adaptive Use project that was initiated by my colleague at Rensselaer, Pauline Oliveros. Through Pauline, I met David Whalen who is developing a mouth controller with his firends, the Jamboxx. We soon realized that these projects were right at the heart of the renewed maker movement that shook up the do-it-yourself communitity. Musical Instruments and Art Interfaces for people with special needs typically need to be highly personalized, and support networks like this one can help to facilitate communication between developers worlwide. The community portal follows the first International Symposium on Assistive Technologies for Music and Art (ISATMA 2013) which was carried out at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in June 2013 in collaboration with the Deep Listening Institute. The symposium was supported by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, and we hope to continue to exchange our ideas and resources this way.