Updating the Classifications of Mobile Music Projects

This paper reviews the mobile music projects that have been presented at NIME in the past ten years in order to assess whether the changes in technology have affected the activities of mobile music research. An overview of mobile music projects is presented using the categories that describe the main activities: projects that explore the influence of and make use of location; applications that share audio or promote collaborative composition; interaction using wearable devices; the use of mobile phones as performance devices; projects that explore HCI design issues. The relative activity between different of categories of mobile music is assessed in order to identify trends. The classification according to technological, social or geographic showed an overwhelming bias to the technological, followed by social investigations. An alternative classification of survey, product, or artefact reveals an increase in the number of products described with a corresponding decline in the number of surveys and artistic projects. The increase in technical papers appears to be due to an enthusiasm to make use of increased capability of mobile phones, although there are signs that the initial interest has already peaked, and researchers are again interested to explore technologies and artistic expression beyond what can be provided by existing mobile phones.