The following points were raised and discussed during the NIME 2024 Town Hall Meeting on 6th September 2024. We invite you to reply to this post with comments, suggestions, and ideas on how to improve NIME as both a conference and a community.
NIME should explore solutions to bring participants from the Global South to the conference, as this can foster mutual inspiration and learning. This can be achieved through funding schemes and collaborations with other institutions to secure financial support. Discussions about inclusion, which began a few years ago but have since cooled down, should be revived and maintained.
Future NIMEs should include a dedicated room for chilling, jamming, and playing together throughout the conference. This space would help connect NIMErs, allowing them to exchange ideas and foster creativity.
The emphasis on academic rigor at NIME can make it less accessible and appealing to independent artists with interesting projects. Therefore, NIME should work to include individuals from outside academia.
The following accessibility issues were present at NIME 2024: disabled toilets were not clearly labeled or accessible; steps led to gathering areas where food and drinks were shared; there was insufficient time or distance for those using wheelchairs or with limited mobility to move between conference venues; and there were inadequate provisions for parents, such as toilets with changing stations and venues that allow babies or children under a certain age.
To ensure a diverse and inclusive environment, an Accessibility Chair should be established for future NIMEs. This role would oversee and implement necessary accommodations to support all attendees.
On the note of inclusion (but also from an environmental point of view), we talked quickly with others about organising local gatherings for people who can not travel to the conference. For example, with next year’s conference in Camberra, we were thinking of organising a (or multiple) European gathering(s) to attend the conference virtually together and participate in demos/jam sessions.
This could partly help bring researchers and artists from underrepresented countries.
Maybe these gatherings could be a bit more formally structured, or at least visible from the website.
To make this somehow more structured and/or visible on NIME 2025 website, @charlesmartin is the right person to talk with.
I remember, back in 2022, when NIME was fully online, we organized a sort of “NIME watch party” here in Oslo (for those based here, just a room with big screen, speakers, coffee and comfortable seats for everyone). My personal experience was that following a conference online with other people physically sitting next to you, was way more engaging than watching the stream by myself and communicating via slack only.
I wonder if it would be possible to see some statistics about the online participation in this year’s NIME conference? Feeling the flygskam, I’m glad that NIME seems to be committed to continuing to support online participation.
I’d like to see info about the online participation as well. This is a tricky issue because it’s a LOT of work to manage the hybrid conference aspects. NIME organisers are already sort of organising two events simultaneously (an academic conference and a music festival) so adding the online parts makes it three.
That said, supporting meaningful participation without travel is one of the best ways we can promote inclusion in our community.
I guess the numbers above refers to the registrations NIME 2024 organizers have received. The actual number of people following online (stream/slack) may be different.