Everyone who’s reading this article has an interest in computer music, whether you call it that or not. In fact dance music in its current form may have never reached such elevated production heights if it weren’t for the parallel development of home and professional computer systems. Anyone with an appreciation for the beautiful marriage of music and technology will find something to tickle their fancy at this year’s Australasian Computer Music Conference ’06: ‘Medi(t)ations’, opening today at Adelaide University’s North Terrace Campus.

Promising an exciting spread of touring keynote speakers, relevant workshops and showcase performances, don’t worry if you missed out on getting a conference pass. While you may miss the opportunity to listen to some heavy verbal material, you might be able to pull the responsible individuals aside for a chat at one of the many nights of Ear Poke- the conference’s side show program at the Jade Monkey. Ear Poke’s most notable international act is the European duo Klipp AV, who aim to address the ‘problems of insufficient improvisation and live relevance to the location’ with their new media barrage of sound, imagery and live coding. A more familiar face who’ll be performing at Ear Poke is The Bird’s bass player, who will be performing live with his other ensemble, Cyber Bass. The group’s sound has been described as ‘linear instrumental jazz meets LTJ Bukem and Laurent Garnier’. Wow!

The remaining Ear Poke performance slots have been filled by everything from the minimal and contemplative to the mad and chaotic, with Dean Roberts (NZ) and Ross Bencina (Vic – developer of Audio Mulch performance software) joining the touring artist headliners. As we would hope, the support slots will feature the work and performances of many local talents, including Alex Carpenter, Poppi Dozer, William Menz (aka Fusier), DJ Tr!p, Michael Goodfellow and even live dance act, Supaphatass.

The conference itself will be held in the University of Adelaide’s main campus, and covers some incredible ground from ultra-techy to poetic. This year the conference seeks to highlight new areas of aesthetics and interrelations in computer music, and delegates are treated to days of presentations, discussions and performances in that vein. Some angles covered include connections between computer music and other media, interface and control systems, media as aesthetic agent, psycho-acoustics and auditory illusions, intermedia practice in other areas and computer music as physical, tactile interactive media. Held in Adelaide for the first time, ACMC 06 is an exciting gathering of computer music practitioners and kicks off this morning at 9am.

Interested members of the public are invited to register for workshops to be held on on Friday, and the Ear Poke performances from Tuesday to Friday nights are not to be missed. Be sure to check out the conference’s website for more details on the conference (including workshop registration) and the inthemix ‘whatson’ for more details on the Ear Poke shows.