This paper presents a practice-based case study that explores personalisation as a design methodology for embodied gestural instruments. Through a multi-year collaboration with a professional performer with physical disability, we employed research-through-design and co-design methods to iteratively develop a personalised instrument responsive to the performer’s unique movement style and creative vision. The system enabled real-time control of sound, stage lighting, and visualisations, and was ecologically validated in rehearsals and in an award-winning disability-led theatre production. Extending beyond the stage, we refined the instrument through workshops with young people with motor, sensory, and communication disabilities, demonstrating its adaptability to diverse bodies and creative practices. Rather than focusing on generalised solutions, this work advances methods for designing technologies that embrace difference, tailoring interaction to individual capabilities. We contribute to HCI research by articulating personalisation as a methodological approach to inclusive interaction design, expanding opportunities for creative expression among people with physical disability.

Data visualisations are increasingly used online to engage readers and enable independent analysis of the data underlying news stories. However, access to such infographics is problematic for readers who are blind or have low vision (BLV). Equitable access to information is a basic human right and essential for independence and inclusion. We introduce infosonics, the audio equivalent of infographics, as a new style of interactive sonification that uses a spoken introduction and annotation, non-speech audio and sound design elements to present data in an understandable and engaging way. A controlled user evaluation with 18 BLV adults found a COVID-19 infosonic enabled a clearer mental image than a traditional sonification. Further, infosonics prove complementary to text descriptions and facilitate independent understanding of the data. Based on our findings, we provide preliminary suggestions for infosonics design, which we hope will enable BLV people to gain equitable access to online news and information.

The field of Accessible Digital Musical Instruments (ADMIs) is growing rapidly, with instrument designers recognising that adaptations to existing Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) can foster inclusive music making. ADMIs offer opportunities to engage with a wider range of sounds than acoustic instruments. Furthermore, gestural ADMIs free the music maker from relying on screen, keyboard and mouse-based interfaces for engaging with these sounds. This brings greater opportunities for exploration, improvisation, empowerment and flow through music making for people living with disabilities. This paper presents a case study of the a gestural DMI invented by the first author and shows that system-based considerations that enabled an expert percussionist to achieve virtuoso performances with the instrument, required minimal hardware and software changes to facilitate greater inclusivity. Understanding the needs of the users and customising the system-based movement to sound mappings was of far greater importance in making the instrument accessible.

This paper describes the technology, concepts and development of Computer Storm, a live audio-visual piece created for a gestural instrument, the 'AirSticks'. The AirSticks allow the composition, performance and improvisation of live electronic music and graphics using movements captured by handheld motion controllers. In this piece, the AirSticks are combined with commodity depth sensors, and a custom visualisation system 'Confluence' which generates graphics from music and motion in real-time. The hardware used to display the images within the performance space is also described, as well as an overview of the resulting performance, which explores harmony across music, visuals and movement, and investigates our complex relationship with technology.

'AirStorm' is a semi-improvised short 10-min piece for solo AirSticks and physical model visualisation performed by Alon Ilsar and Andrew Bluff respectively. It will be made up of a drum synth, drum samples, other selected samples and room feedback triggered and manipulated by Ilsar on this newly built interface for electronic percussionists. The piece will display some of the capabilities of the AirSticks along with Ilsar's dedication to practicing and composing for this new interface. "AirStorm" will be based around the conferences theme of "Computers, Arts and Data" through the choice and samples and ways are played. The movement data from Ilsar's Airsticks is processed in real-time by Bluff's physics based visualisation engine, Storm. Particles are pushed around a virtual 3D world in response to the movements of the AirSticks and rigid body collision adds a sense of real-world authenticity and complexity. The system responds to drums and movements of the AirSticks with a combination of different visual and physical effects. The real-time visualisations exemplify the movement and sonic complexity of Ilsar's AirSticks performance, providing a visually stimulating and highly synesthetic element to the piece.

This paper discusses the use of choreography in mapping sound to movement in the field of new instrument design. Using the analogy of the drum kit player utilising all four limbs in a similar fashion to a dancer, we investigate the notion of mapping movement to prerecorded sound in that order, as opposed to sound mapped to movement. In this way the mapping process becomes a type of "choreography", where a particular piece of music is learnt to be played as the mapping is determined. We outline three main factors which must be balanced within the mapping process. We present findings from the development of a new gestural interface for electronic percussionists and several collaborations that this interface has been used in.

'I & I' is a semi-improvised short piece for solo AirSticks performed by Alon Ilsar. It will be made up of composed samples and feedback loops triggered and manipulated by Ilsar on this newly built interface for electronic percussionists. The piece will display some of the capabilities of the AirSticks along with Ilsar's dedication to practicing and composing for this new interface. 'I & I' will be based around the conferences theme of 'intersections and interactions' through the choice of samples and way they are mapped to movement.