Tim Yates – Ball Balancer: Proof of Concept

Spatial Audio Lab (King William Building, Ground Floor)

Saturday: 10am-4pm

Sunday: 11am-3pm

The Ball Balancer is the first stage of a long term project to develop an immersive pinball machine. It incorporates a bespoke 3RRS parallel manipulator with camera tracking to automatically balance and manipulate a metal ball on a moving plate, whilst spatialising the live acoustic sound of the rolling ball in a multichannel audio system. The system addresses some of the key technical requirements of the final project including object camera tracking, live spatialisation of moving objects, networked communication between hardware systems as well as the automatic manipulation of objects in space.

The installation explores ideas of perspective and position, placing the audience member simultaneously inside and outside the machine.

The workshop will include experiencing the installation along with a Q&A. As it’s a proof of concept I hope to get feedback on the overall success of the installation as well as elements of audience experience and presentation that would enhance its effectiveness.

Tim Yates is currently pursuing a practice based PhD building immersive, interactive sound installations using spatial audio at the University of Greenwich. His research is focussed on developing communal and multiplayer systems for interacting with sound, light and video, as well as building kinetic sound machines.

He is also Research and Innovation Executive at Drake Music, an Arts Council NPO working at the intersection of music, technology and Disability. In that role he leads a national programme focused on developing the next generation of accessible instruments and technology and widening access and availability of that technology.

He has degrees in Philosophy and Music from the University of Leeds and Trinity College of Music, as well as an MMus in Advanced Composition from the Royal College of Music.