Dear friends

The NIME 2020 conference is mutating into an exciting online edition for participants in all regions of the world. This year's theme, the Accessibility of Musical Expression, is curiously timed for a planetary epidemiological lock-down, and offers a timely challenge to developers of New Interfaces for Musical Expression.

COVID-19 is an urgent wake-up call for humanity. It is also an acute reminder of our accountability as inhabitants of a planet reeling from human hubris. We are uniquely positioned to promote NIME's broader societal implications via a richly networked conference ecosystem and reposition our intellectual journeys as a dynamic, creatively evolving, online community. NIME 2020 will also allow us to explore through online technologies that socially cohesive activity called musicking - something we need now, more than ever!

NIME's recognised platform offers a rigorously peer-reviewed channel for publishing and discussing pioneering artistic and technical endeavours. Our 2020 edition will deploy these energies across formats that creatively combine synchronous and asynchronous materials, and concepts of presence and "real-time", in virtual and hybrid spaces where time zones productively collide. Keynotes, papers, demos, workshops and concerts will all be delivered online. The installation track, a traditional feature of NIME, will need to be repurposed for online fruition. To this effect we are issuing an additional short callhttps://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnime2020.bcu.ac.uk%2F%23callForInstallations&data=02%7C01%7CSallyJane.Norman%40vuw.ac.nz%7C3ddfb88fb1244225985108d7da0df042%7Ccfe63e236951427e8683bb84dcf1d20c%7C0%7C0%7C637217625814726635&sdata=OQ%2FYO4WOwjRpk1vKSy9SymPr0LrYlrKciyX1w5QjUKs%3D&reserved=0 for proposals of installations designed to be experienced online. The call will be open from 6 April until 10 May.

To reframe NIME 2020, we are also asking members of the community that are proficient at integrating online platforms to help shape our event. Just drop us an email if you want to contribute. Through its systemic design, we intend NIME 2020 to serve as a reference for other collaborative online events, and thus as a significant marker of our NIME legacy and responsibility.

Early-bird registration for NIME 2020 opens on 13 April 2020. We have massively reduced the conference registration fee, and we look very much forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to the 2020 online edition of NIME!

Sally Jane Norman & Lamberto Coccioli NIME 2020 General Co-Chairs

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