about
Kyle Smith
designer · engineer · multimodal artist
I'm a designer, engineer, and researcher, and a Ph.D. student in the Creative Music Technology Lab at Georgia Tech, where I hold a Presidential Fellowship. I study how humans share agency with intelligent systems, and I do it through musical performance: I build embedded instruments and wearables around small, local, legible AI — models simple enough to run on a device and be understood — where playing becomes negotiation rather than command. The position underneath all of it is that AI should augment creative practice, not automate it.
That work spans agent-based and biomimetic instruments, biosignal wearables, spatial audio, and iris, an open-source neural-network gestural-mapping library for embedded instruments. It has been published and presented at ICMC 2026 (Hamburg) and ICAD 2026. I also co-founded Proxima, a studio loudspeaker company, and maintain an active performance practice built on synthesizers and Eurorack modules I design, build, and circuit-bend.
Before Georgia Tech, I was a field engineer and photographer on National Geographic's Boiling River Project in the Peruvian Amazon. I'm a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts and YoungArts finalist with work shown at the Kennedy Center, a finalist at MWC Barcelona's World Cup of Innovations, and I hold two patents, a B.S. in Creative Technology & Design from CU Boulder's ATLAS Institute, and an M.S. in Music Technology from Georgia Tech.
cv / recognition
download pdf →- 2026–Ph.D. Music Technology · Creative Music Technology Lab, Georgia Tech
- 2026Presidential Fellowship · Georgia Tech
- 2025–26Dean's Fellowship · College of Design, Georgia Tech
- 2026M.S. Music Technology · Georgia Tech
- 2024B.S. Creative Technology & Design · ATLAS Institute, CU Boulder
- —Co-founder, Proxima · studio loudspeaker company
- 2026“Blank Canvas” · The Art Farm at Serenbe
- 2024–25Biophilic Leadership Summit · installation and talks
- 2022“I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You” · Boulder Creative Collective
- 2017–19Field engineer + photographer, National Geographic Boiling River Project · Peruvian Amazon
- 2019U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts · Kennedy Center salute
- 2019YoungArts finalist in photography · National YoungArts Week, Miami
- 2016Finalist, World Cup of Innovations · Mobile World Congress, Barcelona
publications / presentations
- 2026
Spores: A Physarum-Inspired Instrument for Agent-Based Ecological Interaction
ICMC 2026 · Hamburg
Smith, K., and A. Smith. Proceedings of the 51st International Computer Music Conference, pp. 347–351.
- 2026
All Because We Can: An Ambisonic Exploration and Sonification of Data Center Expansion in the United States
ICAD 2026 · Bielefeld / Barcelona / Troy, NY
Smith, A., and K. Smith. Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Auditory Display.
- in review
Extended Spores paper
Computer Music Journal
Submitted; under review.
patents
- US 9619996 B1Distributed Wild Fire Alert System
- US 8558702 B2Apparatus and Method for Preventing Pressure Injuries and Circulatory Problems in Sedentary Patients
contact
blotten@blotten.com← archiveAtlanta · Ph.D. + Presidential Fellow, Creative Music Technology Lab, Georgia Tech.field work ↗