The Centre for Audiovisual Research has supported a wide range of projects. Here are some recent highlights of research funded by the Centre.
'Constellations' Performance Film (Dr Zubin Kanga)
The funding was used to cover the editing costs of a performance film, documenting 'Constellations', a Cyborg Soloists collaboration with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) and the French ensemble, L'instant Donné. This UK-French collaboration celebrated the 100th anniversary of Boulez's birth, and featured two new Cyborg Soloists commissions (by one British and one French composer) both responding to Boulez's music and his role as a music technology innovator as the founder of the research institute, IRCAM. These two Cyborg Soloists chamber concerti were performed by Zubin Kanga as soloist alongside the two ensembles and conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire, and featured a variety of cutting edge technologies from Cyborg Soloists industry partners, including the ROLI Seaboard, a keyboard with four additional dimensions of control, and the Genki WAVE sensor ring, an accelerometer that allows the performer to shape sound through movement.
The video documentation has facilitated wider dissemination of the artistic and technological innovations of the collaboration, as well as helping to facilitate a new project planned between Cyborg Soloists and BCMG, featuring live AI tools.
Multi-Camera Documentation of a Choral Music Recording Session (Dr Nathan James Dearden)
One project, led by Dr Nathan James Dearden, contributed towards the cost of hiring a professional videography team for a REF-eligible output: a recording of music with the Choir of Royal Holloway.
We are delighted to have received the support of CAVR towards the professional video documentation of composer Nathan James Dearden’s debut album project through funding for Ben Tomlin Productions. This investment enabled the creation of high-quality, multi-camera footage during the pivotal recording session with the Choir of Royal Holloway at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, London, in May 2025. The resulting video material will serve as essential promotional content for the album's release on Signum Records, helping to bring this significant new choral music to wider national and international audiences. This project supported the Centre’s strategic aim of generating high-quality, practice-based outputs with measurable impact, fostering industry partnerships, and amplifying Royal Holloway’s reputation.
Archives and Presentations of Motor Racing History (Will Farmer)
Funding from the Centre allowed Will Farmer, as part of his PhD research, to visit the archives at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire. It enabled him to explore the audiovisual representation of motorsport and entertainment brands in a museum setting, specifically examining how and why musical choices can connect audiences to historical and contemporary understandings of motoring
He was also able to access the extensive archives and investigate original copies of race programmes from the early 1920s through late 1930s. These are undigitised and therefore can only be accessed in-person. As a result of this trip, he was able to identify the earliest record of music in an official programme. Alongside this, he stumbled across pictures of early events which proved useful to solidifying the long relationship between music and motorsport brands.
Documentation of PIGSPIGSPIGS performance by Bastard Assignments
PIGSPIGSPIGS is a 75-minute experimental music theatre work created and performed by Bastard Assignments. The piece presents the darkly comic story of an English farming family who find themselves affected by strange, dark powers coming from their land. It combines theatre and movement with improvised and notated music for voices, conventional instruments and objects as well as a new electroacoustic bowed twig instrument, the 'Twigstrument'. The UK premiere of PIGSPIGSPIGS at Wigmore Hall was filmed with the support of CAVR, then edited by Bastard Assignments to produce a full-length performance film. PIGSPIGSPIGS was commissioned by Borealis - a festival for experimental music (Norway), SPOR Festival (Denmark) and Wigmore Hall, with the work's development being additionally supported by Arts Council England. The development of the Twigstrument by Caitlin Rowley was also supported by Cyborg Soloists (PI: Zubin Kanga), a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project based at Royal Holloway, University of London, in partnership with Bela.
The photo below is from the dress rehearsal at Wigmore Hall. Photograph by Alexandra Waespi
