About

A close up of Luke's face looking to the side. He has a gentle smile, bushy beard and thick frame glasses.

Hey there! Thanks for visiting my website. My name is Luke. I am a PhD student, musician and maker based in Bristol in the UK. I'm a white British male usually with a bushy beard and moustache, dressed in something eccentric and donning a big ol' smile on my face. I'm originally from the West Midlands, Worcester to be exact (home of the often mispronounced sauce) and if you get me around the right people, you'll hear my accent change to something resembling a lost Brummie corrupted by the south. This is because I'm now completing a PhD in accessible sonic interaction design at UWE Bristol. I make a bunch of music ranging from hyperpop and rap to math rock and heartthrob indie which you can find on this website. I'm also a maker and creative technologist who likes to build generative/abstract stuff with code because it's fun.

Research and Education

A close up of Luke at a conference power posing in front of an academic poster displaying his work.

PhD

I am currently studying towards a PhD at the University of the West of England. My PhD is titled 'The Affordances of Sonic Interaction Design for Accessible Narrative and Navigation in Virtual Environments'. To summarise, everyone should the oppurtunity to decide if they like or dislike a game and being able to access a game in the first place shouldn't be a contributing factor to that decision. Sound is the thing I'm passionate about, so in order to push our understanding of accessible games forward and create a future where access to games is universal, I'm working with gamers across different types of access to assess where sound design and interaction can be used to provide access. I'm supervised by Dr Natanya Ford and Dr Thomas Mitchell.

Lecturing

I dabble in teaching alongside my PhD, teaching about audio programming and creative technology research projects. I supervise student projects in game audio, sound design, accessibile design and inclusive research. I believe in dialogic collaboration with students, and encourage all students to consider accessibility in their work. I always bring the brightest positive vibes, bonkers analogies for explaining abstract code concepts, and coffee-fuelled discussions to get those creative ideas flowing!

Masters

My Masters was in Creative Technologies at the University of the West of England. My thesis was "Utilising elicitation methods to understand and design informative and accessible experiences of digital reverberation'. This thesis was published at AES 150th Convention with the title "Towards an audio attribute framework for understanding the perception of reverberant spaces through elicitation and clustering methods based on participant expectation". My thesis was under the supervision of Professor Dan Buzzo and Dr Natanya Ford who have since both taught me about the benefits of shorter thesis titles.

Publications

My publications are available in the following table from most recent to oldest. Links to external sites may feature content behind paid memberships. Preprints are available!:

Title Authors Publishing Body/Event Preprint
A systematic review of reverberation and accessibility for B/blind users in virtual environments Luke Child, Dr Natanya Ford and Dr Thomas Mitchell Audio Engineering Society 2023 International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio Download paper preprint as PDF
Towards an audio attribute framework for understanding the perception of reverberant spaces through elicitation and clustering methods based on participant expectation Luke Child and Dr Natanya Ford Audio Engineering Society Convention 150 Coming soon...

Music

Cosmic

Luke dressed in an abstract jumper and neon cat dunagrees wearing a space helmet. The text 'Cosmic' overlays the image in a pink and white stylish font.

Cosmic is my intergalactic, space-faring alter ego that sits at the intersection of a washed up elder emo dressed in zebra print skinny jeans and a super vibrant hyperpop scene kid that brings energy like a sieve in a microwave. Exploring spacey themes through hyperpop, math rock and the lack of any weirdness threshold, Cosmic brings the biscuits and invites you for the best cuppa this side of the galaxy.

Scrub

A close up the Drag Car Racer EP album cover by Scrub. A newspaper cartoon-styled Luke and Corey have panicked expressions while racing a derby car through the desert.

Tongue-in-cheek PhD punk from either end of the M4 corridor. Along with fellow researcher you can find punk to dance to with your nan and granddad. Their first EP 'Drag Car Racer' takes you through wild stories involving the drag-racing mothers of ex girlfriends, dancing old ladies, being a better president than what is on offer, and remembing loved ones who've passed.

Walking Billboards

A close up of Luke and Archie stood in a telephone box with the outlines for the letters W and B overlayed

When a pub 5 minutes away from your old house provides the perfect facilitation for drunken friends and acoustic guitars, you make a band from it. Alongisde fellow creative techie Archie Hollyfield you can find silly songs made up over beer from Basement Beer in Bristol and more recently, DIY indie hits using word generators for song titles.

Space Dad

Luke (Cosmic) and Matt (DILF Syndrome)'s eyes close up with a blue filter applied. The letters S and D are in the middle.

A collaboration project between Cosmic and Nashville lofi heartthrob DILF Syndrome. Dusty, chilled, and glitchy lo-fi production from Space Dad matched with lyrical whimiscalness and jazzy sprinkles from Cosmic, their first EP is coming soon...

Our Spaceship Up Against Yours

A closeup of a logo depicting an alien squid-like being made from the letters O S and S.

Generative coding and chance meets alternative math rock and a tinge of midwest emo. Playing into Luke's teenage years, this project takes the gritty guitar tones and shouty vocals of bands like Biffy Clyro, Funeral for a Friend and Alexisonfire and stirs it up in a pot with dice-rolled time signatures, random drunken midi in Max MSP and enough randomness to rival a 2010s teen with lens-less glasses with a moustasche on their finger. More information coming soon...

Coding and Creative Tech

Coming soon once I've organised my GitHub and took screenshots and stuff...

Contact

You can find Luke via the following platforms: