Georg Essl (born March 1, 1972) is an Austrian computer scientist and musician, who works in the areas of human-computer interaction, acoustics, mobile computing and mobile music. He is a visiting research professor at the College of Letters & Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and he is also affiliated with the Center for 21st Century Studies. Prior to that he was an assistant professor at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
.
Life and work
Georg Essl completed a doctoral degree at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
in the United States. Under
Perry Cook's direction, Essl wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject of physical modeling of musical sounds. For this, he developed a new sound synthesis method called
banded waveguide synthesis.
After completing his doctoral degree in 2002, he taught computer science, music, and digital art at the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
. Then in 2003 he went to the newly founded MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin, Ireland, to develop new electronic musical instruments with Sile O'Modhrain. A whole series of innovative musical instruments were created. One of the most successful of these was the PebbleBox instrument, which was displayed at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...
in London in 2005. After the closing of Media Lab Europe, Essl conducted research at the
Telekom Innovation Laboratories
T-Labs, formerly known as "Telekom Innovation Laboratories", is the R&D unit of Deutsche Telekom. T-Labs current research areas are: Future Networks, Spatial Computing and Decentralized Systems.
History
T-Labs were founded in 2004 as the cent ...
at the
Technical University of Berlin
The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...
. There he did groundbreaking work in mobile music, in which conventional programmable mobile cell phones are employed as musical instruments.
Georg Essl is one of the co-founders of the "MoPho" movement. MoPhos are orchestras of mobile devices. Together with Ge Wang and Henri Penttinen, he founded the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra and was later also founder and director of the Berlin Mobile Phone Orchestra and the Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble. He further served as advisor and consultant for the iPhone App company Smule, which developed musical instruments such as the ocarina and the leaf trombone.
Since 2009, Essl teaches computer science and music at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. He is the senior architect and developer of the mobile music platforms SpeedDial and urMus. He has contributed ideas from topology to the field of sound synthesis, for example showing how circle maps can be used to implement nonlinear oscillators for generating tones ranging from simple to chaotic. Essl's sound synthesis methods are employed by composers such as Paul Lansky, Brad Garton, Matt Burtner, Juraj Kojs and Ted Coffey and are available in many synthesis programs such as the Synthesis ToolKit (STK), PeRColate, and
ChucK
Chuck is a masculine given name or a nickname for Charles or Charlie. It may refer to:
People
Arts and entertainment
* Chuck Alaimo, American saxophonist, leader of the Chuck Alaimo Quartet
* Chuck Barris (1929–2017), American TV producer
* ...
.
Banded Waveguides in ChucK
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Georg Essl is not related to the composer Karlheinz Essl
Karlheinz Essl (born 15 August 1960) is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser, and composition teacher.
Biography
Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition (under Friedr ...
.
Links
Georg Essl's Website
Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble
Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra
urMus
A meta-environment for developing mobile interactions
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Essl, Georg
1972 births
Austrian expatriates in the United States
Princeton University alumni
University of Florida faculty
University of Michigan faculty
Living people