Jeremy J Ham · Musician · Architect · Artist

Exploring a Musico-Spatial Continuum

An ongoing inquiry at the intersection of the musical and the spatial — improvised drumming, captured as data and given three-dimensional form.

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Each drum improvisation is a unique expression of timing, polyrhythm and dynamics. My enduring curiosity: can the musical parameters of an improvisation be given form? My artworks transform performance into three-dimensional space; my soundscapes push the boundaries of drum-based music into vast durational works. I'm fascinated by the potential of digital technologies in the musico-spatial domain.

— Jeremy J Ham

Modes of creative practice across the musico-spatial continuum

01 Liquid Polyrhythm

Liquid Polyrhythm.

A continuing body of work — Liquid Polyrhythm, Nebula, Vortex, Oculus, Radial and Seascape. Each is the spatial form of an improvised drum solo; some hold a single performance, others overlay several into one composite. Hover any work to enlarge it.

Selected works are available as prints on Etsy and Redbubble, and held in private collections. Get in touch →

02 The Idea

Transforming polyrhythm into space.

Drum→Data→Form→3D form

/ 01

Improvise

Hundreds of improvised solos on the digital drum kit — a highly improvisatory style built over decades in punk, rock and funk bands.

/ 02

Capture

Each strike is recorded as MIDI: the precise timing, velocity and duration of every note becomes raw spatial data.

/ 03

Generate

Computational procedures in Rhino 3D & Grasshopper translate the performance data into complex three-dimensional liquid forms.

/ 04

Render

The forms are given materiality — colour, translucency and light — then composed and rendered as large-format works for exhibition and print.

03 Synaespatia · Networked VR

A musico-spatial
virtual environment.

Watch the showreel · with sound

Ars Electronica Garden Aotearoa · Wellington · 2022

In a Networked Musico-Spatial Virtual Environment, visitors navigate spatialised musical data and sound in real time. Live drumming, interactive VR and spatial sound become a single, immersive work — Synaespatia.

Developed over a decade with Dr Uwe Woessner at the High Performance Computing Center (HLRS), University of Stuttgart, and rendered through the COVISE / OpenCOVER framework — performed solo and in networked exchange between Australia and Germany.

Synaespatia installation, Ars Electronica

Instruments: Drums · synthesiser · theremin
Environment: Real-time navigable VR & spatial sound
Engine: COVISE / OpenCOVER, HLRS Stuttgart
Collaborator: Dr Uwe Woessner (HLRS)

Performative installations shown at Ars Electronica Garden Aotearoa (Wellington), the International Computer Music Conference, the IEEE Symposium on the Internet of Sounds, and Most Wanted: Music (Berlin).

Synaespatia is performed solo and in collaboration. Get in touch →

04 Drums & Percussion

A practice embodied
in performance.

Play · PhD performance, 2018

Improvised drumming drives the projected spatial forms in real time · 2018

Jeremy's practice is founded on 40 years of live performance — hundreds of live gigs across decades, on stages in pubs and clubs around Australia. His playing is energetic, highly improvisatory, creative and dynamic.

He has recorded four albums, including Digital Drumscapes Vol 1 (2017) — a solo album of soundscapes created entirely from the digital drum kit, and the seed of the Liquid Polyrhythm artworks.

Compost · jazz-metal trio · 1990s Surfusion · surf-funk fusion · 2000s Inked Factor Arch Revival Blues Band · current

Digital Drumscapes Vol 1 — album cover — Digital Drumscapes Vol 1 · 2017 · solo album from the digital drum kit

05 The Artist

Jeremy J Ham performing Synaespatia — theremin and VR — at Ars Electronica, 2022

Dr Jeremy J Ham

An Australian artist, architect and design researcher whose practice sits at the intersection of music, data and spatial form. For over a decade he has pursued a single generative question: how can music be transformed into three-dimensional space?

That question was the subject of a creative practice-based PhD at RMIT University's Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) — “Improvising Polyrhythmic Space” — and continues through ongoing international collaboration and peer-reviewed research. He is based on the Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia.

Selected Performances

Nov 25Most Wanted: Music, BerlinInternational music technology festival
Oct 24Australian Computer Music Conference, Melbourne
Sep 24IEEE Symposium on the Internet of Sounds, Erlangen
Jun 22Ars Electronica Garden Aotearoa, Wellington
May 21Klingt Gut Sonic Arts Symposium, Hamburg
Sep 20eCAADe Conference, BerlinNetworked VR performance

Selected Exhibitions

Feb 25Solo, Sol Gallery, Melbourne
Nov 23Group, Hoop Gallery, Torquay
Oct 23Solo, Red Gallery, Melbourne
Apr 23Solo, Hoop Gallery, Torquay

06 Research & Writing

The theory
behind the work.

The work is grounded in a continuing programme of peer-reviewed research across architecture, music and computation. Each paper is freely downloadable as a PDF from CumInCAD.

2026

Artistic Practice as Informed Creativity: Exploring a Continuum of Digital Design Research and Artistic PracticeHam — eCAADe 44, Lübeck, Germany

Upcoming

2023

Cross-Domain Representation Reconsidered: Using parametric tools to understand musicHam — eCAADe 41, Graz

PDF · CumInCAD →

2022

Exploring Synaespatia within a Networked Musico-Spatial Virtual EnvironmentHam, Woessner & Kieferle — eCAADe 40, Ghent

PDF · CumInCAD →

2019

Exploring the Affordances and Musico-Spatial Performance Opportunities of a Virtual Drumming EnvironmentHam, Woessner, Kieferle & Harvey — eCAADe 37 / SIGraDi 23, Porto

PDF · CumInCAD →