NIME 2026 communities theme

1

I love this year’s “communities” theme, but I wonder if the call text could be adjusted to be more inclusive? In particular, there’s a general assumption that the reader is employed by a University.

“How can we work more closely with musicians, artists and designers outside the academic realm, and what can we learn from rich traditions of design and experimentation outside academia?”

Who is the ‘we’ here? I think NIME includes contributions from non-academics, for example I haven’t worked for or been affiliated with a University for around a decade, but have presented at NIME during that time, am a full-time research fellow funded by UKRI, and collaborate with a wide range of practitioners and researchers who mostly don’t have University affiliations but would be happy to collaborate on a NIME submission.

“We also encourage submissions which feature the active participation of individuals or communities outside of academic research.”

I understand the intent, but again this seems to work against its aims. It reads as dividing people into academics and non-academics, and I find the choice of phrase ‘active participation’ off-putting, or are non-academics not allowed to be lead- or single-author on NIME submissions?

I thought about writing about this in a paper submission but thought it would be more efficient to write a forum post :slight_smile:

2

I agree that NIME is less welcoming to independent researchers than it could and should be, but my examples are different. I recently pointed out an unexpected example in a different thread: the CMT’s Domain Conflicts prompt not accepting an empty string or “none”. Presumably it was merely an oversight, but it’s revealing: the underlying assumption is that all participants must have at least one conflict because they’re academics.

A more serious example is the high cost of attendance. Academic participants rarely consider this, because universities generally pick up the cost of sending their students and faculty to conferences. For an independent researcher, the total cost–entrance fee, travel, room and board–can be quite significant. This leads to deferring participation until the conference is held in a country that’s reasonably close to the researcher’s own, in order to reduce travel costs (and CO2 emissions, though that certainly deserves its own topic).

The most far-reaching questions concern the role of conferences and journals in the dissemination of scientific research. Traditionally they’ve been gatekeepers, but the rise of self-publishing is rapidly changing the landscape. As I commented elsewhere on this forum, it’s already common for researchers to publish preprints on sites such as arXiv and Zenodo–particularly in math and physics–not just because it’s less time-consuming and expensive, but more importantly because it’s faster. Priority is often a zero-sum game, and things move fast in the 21st century. Independent researchers in particular rightly fear losing priority to better-funded academic competitors. That’s why I urged NIME to clarify its pre-print policy.

3

Registration costs are tricky but remote participation is available, to save on financial and ecological travel costs. NIME proceedings are published via zenodo, no dodgy publishers involved.

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Thanks for these comments @yaxu and @ckorda. I agree with both of you, and I think this raises a more fundamental question about how NIME defines its community and who it imagines as its contributors.

A few observations: Fields like theoretical physics or pharmacology do not have large practitioner communities outside universities. Experimental music and instrument building are different. Most of the significant work in these areas has taken place outside academic institutions. The academically aligned part of this ecosystem is important, but it represents a relatively small portion of the broader culture of practice and experimental music. I believe that NIME is (or should be) a bridge from the larger cultural context to academia, rather than the other way around.

NIME is one of the few technical conferences that has genuine access to non-academic and non-formal knowledge traditions, and in fact relies on them deeply. The subject matter is inseparable from cultural practice, and if NIME’s structure and language imagines music primarily from an academic contexts, then the conference risks positioning itself as an observer of the broader field rather than an active participant within it.

The cost of attendance is also a major barrier for anyone without institutional support. The most recent conference was hosted in expensive university venues with catering and overheads that significantly inflated the registration fee (i haven’t been to others so cannot comment). This placed the event far beyond what independent artists and practitioners can reasonably afford. There is no intrinsic need for the conference to carry these costs. With different venue choices (and less fancy snacks), the event could run at a fraction of the price while still supporting organisers and covering costs.

I acknowledge that organisers are volunteers and that their work is appreciated. At the same time, many receive institutional recognition, workload credit, a KPI that can help them get a promotion or at a minimum a CV kick for their contribution. This is understandable, but it does mean that the current structure privileges people already embedded in academic environments.

I don’t want to criticise past organisers who have given time and care to the conference. But I do want to highlight that if NIME wishes to meaningfully engage with communities it claims to value, then both the language of the call and the conditions of participation need attention.

Of course, it is possible that I am misunderstanding NIME entirely.

The opening question “How can we work more closely with musicians” clearly implies that NIME sees itself primarily as academia reaching outward. If so, that clarifies the framing, but also sets NIME up to be outside of music and maybe in need of a name change.

Fred

5

Thanks for the thoughts both! I expect the call was an effort to bridge communities but inadvertently got the assumptions a bit wrong. Hopefully would be a quick fix.

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Hi all,

NIME’26 co-chair (and longtime NIMEr) here. Alongside Courtney (the other co-chair) and members of the NIME Board, I was closely involved in choosing the theme for this year. Much of the wording was probably mine. It passed through the NIME Board before publishing, but we are very open for feedback and improvements!

@yaxu you raise a good point about how the framing, despite the intention to reach a broader audience, implicitly suggests an insider/outsider divide that might reinforce the very insularity that we are seeking to reduce. I’m very open to refining the theme, and would welcome your suggestions for how to reword it!

I stand behind this theme for a number of reasons. Aside from cost, one of the reasons that independent artists get excluded from NIME participation (particularly in the paper track) is a certain gatekeeping mentality I’ve seen in reviewing, where submissions that don’t conform to the expectations of an academic research paper might be rejected even where the ideas have merit. I have some personal stories there which I won’t share in this forum. But I think it is very much appropriate to suggest to academic members of the community that other forms of knowledge are possible.

Another reason for the theme is as a counterpart (though not a criticism) of an introspective strand of NIME that has surfaced in recent years, looking at the multifarious identities of the people who comprise the NIME community, analysing trends within NIME publications, music and artefacts, etc. I love this kind of work and have written a fair few papers in that vein myself. BUT there’s a much wider world out there of musicians and instrument builders who have never even heard of NIME or currently couldn’t care less about it. The theme is intended to call attention to this incredible creative resource that we as a community could do more to engage with. And that’s not a solely academic/non-academic thing. There isn’t one “outside community”, there are a million different communities, distinguished by geography, genre, and many other factors.

Aside from the theme itself, one place we’re trying out a more expansive notion of NIME contributions is in the new alt.nime track. I’d encourage everyone to check it out! @yaxu that could be a good place for the contribution you suggest in the original post.

I was also talking to some others in my lab today, and the idea came up that we could be doing more to raise awareness of NIME (and participation therein) in places that aren’t on our usual mailing lists, forums, etc. Ideas warmly welcome.

7

Thanks for the thoughtful response @andrew. First I want to say again that I do love the theme overall! I won’t go into all the reasons why here, but I am a big fan of creating space for communities. :slight_smile:

Just changing ‘academic’ to ‘scholarly’ etc would be great, but here’s some other suggestions to consider.

I think the first paragraph is fine as-is, but here’s a go at de-emphasising the ‘us-vs-them’ feel, while being more specific about the problem you describe.

This year’s theme acknowledges the incredible diversity of music-making amongst communities large and small, around the world and in our own hometowns. Throughout its history, NIME has defined itself by developing its own artistic communities and traditions. While it has always exchanged ideas and forged alliances with other sites of musical practice, it has to some extent begun to build walls around itself.

I think “what can NIME contribute to other musical and technical communities” implies one-way, post-hoc impact, so could be changed to:

The theme of NIME 2026 looks outward: what can NIME contribute to and learn from other musical and technical communities?

“How can we work more closely with musicians, artists and designers outside the academic realm, and what can we learn from rich traditions of design and experimentation outside academia?” I think this is better rephrased to talk about inside and outside of NIME. Whether someone is employed by a university or not seems irrelevant to me.. So how about:

How can we work more closely with researchers, musicians, artists and designers who might never have heard of NIME, and what can we learn from rich traditions of design and experimentation outside scholarly research?

Hope that’s useful!

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@ckorda @s222405968 apologies for the delay in replying about the cost of attendance. This is a perpetually tricky issue, because it’s unfortunately just expensive to host NIME, and that cost has to be covered from somewhere.

I can assure you that conference hosts are not turning to “expensive university venues with catering and overheads that significantly inflated the registration fee”. NIME is a single-track conference that needs a theatre-style venue that can seat 250+ people, with nearby space for posters, demos, installations, etc. Most cities have relatively few suitable spaces. This year, Courtney and I spent quite a while looking around, and universities tend to be the cheapest option. This year Loughborough University of London has been very generous in providing space for the paper programme at no charge, which I hope will reduce the registration costs for participants.

What really runs up the cost at NIME is the music programme. Each year, NIME needs venues for 6+ concerts (plus rehearsals) and production staff to support it. Suitable venues are expensive. Add costs for catering for several days (not cheap either inside or outside a university) and a number of ancillary expenses and your typical NIME can cost tens of thousands of dollars to put on.

The question is, who pays for that? Most NIME conferences break even at best. Few universities are willing to heavily subsidise a conference, and industry sponsorship is hard to find. Therefore the registration fees need to cover the costs.

NIME has tried different cost tier models over the years. An enduring one is that students pay substantially less than non-students. Some years, online registration is cheaper than in-person; other years, the cost is the same. NIME 2023 in Mexico had tiered pricing by country. There are merits to each approach, but discounting one group of registrations inevitably pushes up the price of others. Other approaches, like setting a special rate for independent artists, lead to a lot of problems trying to adjudicate who qualifies, or they create large financial uncertainty that leads to higher costs to avoid ending with a deficit.

This is all to say, the cost barriers are real but there are no easy answers. It gets increasingly difficult each year to find people willing to organise NIME. We do it not for institutional perks (which are few, if any) but because we value this community and want to see it continue. Despite these constraints, we’ll try to do right by NIME participants whatever their background and location.

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9

@ckorda self-publishing a preprint of a NIME paper should not pose a problem. NIME publications are licensed CC-BY and copyright retained by the author – as @yaxu says, “no dodgy publishers involved.”

The things you’d want to watch out for would be:

  • Don’t publish something using the NIME paper template before it has been accepted to NIME, or at least, change the footer so readers know it is not (yet) a NIME publication.
  • A preprint of an article should be just that – the same article, archived online in advance. Don’t submit the same article to NIME and to another conference simultaneously, and don’t publish two different papers that are substantially the same in content.
  • Pay careful attention to anonymity in the NIME review process. Reviewers should not be going to Google Scholar to try to unmask authors, but don’t do anything that would make your identity obvious in the article you submit for review.
10

Great ideas @yaxu. Reflecting on it, I was using “academic” as a proxy for “research”, but this is of course not true – research and scholarship happen in many places, as you can clearly attest!

I think your statement of the problem is correct. It has nothing to do with academic or non-academic participation within NIME, but rather a risk of aesthetic and social insularity which ends up narrowing, rather than expanding, the space of musical ideas. However, I’m unsure if I want to advertise this critique as part of promoting the conference.

The addition of “…and learn from” is spot on. I’m not sure how we missed that out to begin with. I’ll see about updating some of the wording on the site.

In response to @s222405968, I have become more comfortable with the idea that NIME is at its core a research (or scholarly) conference (whether “academic” or not). The musicianship must be authentic and vital, but NIME serves a different public role than a music festival, and the financial and organisational structures are different.

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11

Yes agreed my suggestions ended up too self-critical!