Biography
Balandino Di Donato is Lecturer in Interactive Audio at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU).
Currently, he is leading research looking at people's experience and evaluation of sound in mountaineering environments. He is also PI of the ongoing xr-network+ funded project on Sound Design Pipeline For Cross-platform 360 Virtual Productions.
He chaired the Audio Mostly 2023 International Conference on Sound and Interaction Design. In 2023, he also led the Creative Informatics-funded project entitled BSL in Music Embodied Interaction.
He received a PhD in Designing Embodied Human-Computer Interactions in Music Performance from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University in 2021.
Before joining ENU, Balandino was Lecturer Creative Computing at University of Leicester. He was Research Assistant at Goldsmiths - University of London's Embodied AudioVisual Interaction Unit (EAVI), working on the ERC-funded project BioMusic led by Prof Atau Tanaka. In this project, Balandino was Interaction and Sound designer for a wireless EMG board and AI-driven software for musical applications.
Balandino collaborated with De Montfort University on the Creative AI Dataset for Live Co-operative Music Performance project founded by the EPRSC HDI Network; and with the University of Leicester on the Innovating and Crafting Sustainable Digital Ecosystems (INCITE) project. He worked at Integra Live on the Integra Live development, and at Centro Ricerche Musicali di Roma, he assisted the Composer Michelangelo Lupone and the artist Licia Gallizia in the realisation of interactive sound art installations.
Alongside his academic career, Balandino is a Sound Artist. He realised award-winning sound art installations (Biennale of Contemporary art and Design 2018, Biennale ArteScienza 2019) and performed in international conferences (NPAPW, ICMC, Audio Mostly, EmuFest and ElectroAQustica). From 2007 to 2014, he was a freelance Sound Engineer and Audio Technician supporting international music productions (Katie Perry, Backstreet Boys, McBusted, The Voice, Carl Palmer, etc).