The Hackspace Ensemble is a collective of members from Music Hackspace creating musical interfaces together over an extended period of time. Think of it as a jam session spread out over 9 months, except as well as jamming music we’re also jamming together the instruments too. Each month we meet up, discuss, jam and play around with each other’s creations too. Between meetings we think about how our work fits in within the rest of the ensemble and develop it further.

Next summer as the project comes to completion we’ll be organising both performances and installations of the ensemble. The project is led by Tim Murray-Browne, the Music Hackspace’s composer in residence. As a part of the residency, the project is commissioned and supported by Sound and Music and we have high ambitions as to where we’ll exhibit and perform next year.

The ideas behind the project arose out of a concern that whilst musical hackers jam together, a lot of musical creativity happens during the hacking itself which is often done in solo. The idea with the Ensemble is that by continually meeting throughout the creation of the musical interfaces we will arrive with a group of instruments representing the personalities and overall dynamic of the group. This means everyone is encouraged to inject their personality into their contribution – it’s not about creating the next Theremin or Reactable (unless you particularly want to) but about expressing yourself through a musical interface.

The first meeting of the Hackspace Ensemble was held on Sunday 25 November at Troyganic. We drew in a diverse range of Music Hackspace members and got the project kicked off. From left to right: Daniel, Sam, Ariel, Dom, Kacper, Wallace, Sus, Andy, Tadeo, Tim – and behind the camera Panos.