Humans of ISMIR 2022

Three years into a PhD and you inevitably start to know the community within a given field. Who’s working on what? Who is notorious for what? In my particular case, this “get to know” was severely affected by the pandemic. But not completely. Luckily, the virtual “get to know” helped significantly, and I might even say that it allowed for interactions that would otherwise be difficult via a more timid in-person approach. Despite being aware of the virtual MIR community, only last week I had the opportunity to meet the real, flesh and bone version.

The scene for this encounter was set in Bengaluru, India, at ISMIR 2022. First time in India for me (first time in Asia, even!), I felt transported to something very different, very special, ranging from the amazing weather - which contrasted gravely with the British weather at the time - to the incredible food - which I’ve learn to love in some sort of a gastronomical Stockholm syndrome way. The chosen venue was IISc, the Indian Institute of Science, an amazingly vibrant, green and welcoming campus.

After an impactful conference, it is common for researchers to gift the community with a selection of their favourite papers and scientific discoveries. Partly motivated by an absence of human contact due to the pandemic, and partly because I believe this is also a very significant part of the whole scientific community historic impact, I chose to write about the humans of ISMIR instead, and all the small interactions I add with specific, subjective, amazing people. Obviously, this is told from a very personal point of view, and by no means should be taken as an overall group description of anyone. Personally, this post serves two purposes: a) as a nostalgic note that I will be able to visit after some time, and b) to highlight and praise what I came to believe is truly the best of the ISMIR community - its humans.

Given this, I here recall small moments and contacts that marked my journey in Bengaluru; moments with people that I would like to thank and somehow pay homage to. Without any given order, here it is:

to Xavier Favory, for the most authentic Portuguese from Portugal I’ve ever heard from a foreigner. Jean-Baptiste Rolland, for the camaraderie during a very busy and intense walk through the tough streets of Bengaluru. Hadrien Foroughmand and Thomas Lidy, the Utopia gang, for the reassurance that there will be something to do after the PhD, and all the tips about deep diving. Johannes Imort, for trying to remove distortion from guitars in the most elegant way possible. Furkan Yesiler, for the being the trvest Metallica fan I’ve talked to in a while and for the magnific idea of a Killing In the Name Of duet. Omar Eldeeb, for revealing to me that there are crazy guitar tunings in Led Zeppellin. Louis Couturier, for making me question the differences between Sauron and black holes. Yigitcan Özer, for the inspiration, the politeness, the overall impeccable attitude (and the cigarettes!). Marco Martínez, for the patience in enlightening me in the ways of proper Yoga and for providing a very mystical closure to this journey. Clara Borelli and Mathias Rose Bjare, smoking partners, for the brief but indispensable nicotine breaks by the gate. Keunwoo Choi, for delivering a top-notch Quiz host performance amidst a chaotic bus trip through Bengaluru, and for the grooviests bass riffs out there during the jam session. Marco Pasini, for the extraordinary audio example during the presentation. Oriol Nieto, for being even more titanic than I virtually anticipated, for organizing an absolute killer jam session (thanks in due to the rest of the team!) and keeping everyone’s mood so METAL :horns Carlos Guedes and António Ramires, pela camaradagem, pelos momentos de descanso linguístico, e pelo orgulho de ser um entre eles. Alia Morsi, for heading, showing and welcoming me into MIR Africa. Thomas Nuttal and Genís Plaja for being the buddies everyone needs on a night of late quests. Ju-Chiang Wang for the interesting discussions about guitar, football and common friends. Ao pessoal da Moises, Felipe Araújo, Felipe Honorato, Arlindo Galvão e Igor Pereira, por serem ainda mais bacanos do que eu tinha imaginado, e por me terem feito sentir (quase) parte do team deste projecto incrível. To Eunjin Choi, for recognizing dadaGP and putting out the sickest of datasets. Rachel Bittner, for showing me that titans, specially industry titans, are very approachable and don’t bite, and for the patience in answering my nit-picky questions about Spotify in the world. Franca Bittner, for the precise instructions on how to play the harp. Aneesh Vartakavi, for being the closest musical human being to me that I’ve ever met. Pablo Alonso Jiménez, for that amazing trip down the memory lane of Resurrection Fest. Gabriel Meseguer, for the chance to discuss real Prog-Metal and the kind words about Red Fang. Shahar Elisha, for making me reflect on the fact that, sometimes, Metal can, in fact, be seen as noise (still not sure about this, though). Stefan Lattner, for the insightful discussions about the Balkans, about Austria, and for being a titan that walked amongst us. Ashvala Vinay, for taking care of the hardest part of my PhD for me, and for being a legit Mastodon connoisseur. Jocely Huang, for the clarification regarding Dan Brown’s body of work and the contagious passion about how to recommend good music. Elio Quinton, for induling me in my Houellebecq-mania, and for showing me how much we need the M in MIR. Pedro Neves pelas discussões guitarrísticas, o shred, e a partilha de autos.

A special, whole-hearted word to the C4DM universe in person at ISMIR: Saurjya, Christian, Ilaria, Franco, Rafee, Mathieu, Aditya, Soumyia, Emir, Simon, George - some of you I knew very well, some others I didn’t, but the overal sense of belonging, of fellowship, made me really proud of doing this journey together with you all.

Finally, a huge word of appraisal to the organizing and volunteering teams that made this experience forever unforgettable. What an incredible first ISMIR!

I hope next year’s ISMIR will be as rewarding and spectacular as Bengaluru, and that the number of :horns keeps soaring higher and higher!