Bruno Zamborlin (born July 1983 in Vicenza, Italy) is an AI researcher, entrepreneur, and artist based between London and Milan, working in the field of human-computer interaction.^[1] He is an honorary visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is also associated with IRCAM - Centre Pompidou.^[7] His work focuses on converting physical objects into touch-sensitive, interactive surfaces using vibration sensors and artificial intelligence.

In 2013, he founded Mogees Limited, a start-up designed to transform everyday objects into musical instruments and games using a vibration sensor and a mobile phone.^[4] With HyperSurfaces, he converts physical surfaces of any material, shape, and form into data-enabled-interactive surfaces using a vibration sensor and a coin-sized chipset.

As an artist, he has created art installations around the world, with his most recent work comprising a unique series of "sound furnitures" showcased at the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2023.^[6] He has regularly performed with the UK-based electronic music duo Plaid (Warp Records) and gave a TEDx talk on October 3, 2019.

From 2008 to 2011, Zamborlin worked at IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic Musical) – Centre Pompidou as a member of the Sound Music Movement Interaction team.^[8] Under the supervision of Frederic Bevilacqua, he began experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence and human movements, and contributed to the creation of Gesture Follower, a software used to analyse body movements of performers and dancers through motion sensors to control sound and visual media in real-time, slowing down or speeding up their reproduction based on the speed the gestures are performed.^[9,10,12,13] He has lived in London since 2011, where he developed a joint PhD in AI between Goldsmiths, University of London and IRCAM - Centre Pompidou/Pierre and Marie Curie University Paris, focussing on the concept of Interactive Machine Learning applied to digital musical instruments and performing arts.^[16,14,15]

Zamborlin founded Mogees Limited in 2013 in London, with IRCAM being amongst the early partners.^[17] Mogees transforms physical objects into musical instruments and games using a vibration sensor and a series of apps for smartphones and desktop.^{[18,19,20,21,22,23]} After a Kickstarter campaign in 2014, Mogees was used both by common users and by artists such as Rodrigo y Gabriela, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Plaid.^{[24,25,26,28,29]} The algorithms implemented in these apps employ a special version of physical modelling sound synthesis, where vibrations produced by users interacting with the physical object are used as an exciter for a digital resonator running in the app. The result is a hybrid, half acoustic and half digital sound that is a function of both software and the acoustic properties of the chosen physical object.^[30]

In 2017, Zamborlin founded HyperSurfaces together with computational artist Parag K Mital to merge "the physical and the digital worlds".^[31] HyperSurfaces technology converts any surface of any material, shape, and size into data-enabled interactive objects, employing a vibration sensor and proprietary AI algorithms running on a coin-sized chipset.^[32] Vibrations generated by interactions on the surface are converted into an electric signal by a piezoelectric sensor and analysed in real time by the AI algorithms running on the chipset. Anytime the AI recognises a predefined event in the vibration signal, a corresponding notification message is generated in real time and sent to an application.^[33] The technology can be applied to applications ranging from button-less human-computer interaction for automotive and smart home uses to the Internet of things.^[34] Because the AI algorithms run locally on a chipset without needing cloud-based services, they are considered part of the field of edge computing. Additionally, because the AI can be trained beforehand to recognise events of interest, HyperSurfaces algorithms belong to the field of supervised machine learning.^[38,39]

Selected awards include the IRISA Prix Jeune Chercheur on 13 October 2012. Additionally, the NeMoDe, New Economic Models in the Digital Economy award was received on 25 October 2012.

Academic publications include work by Stefano Ferretti, Marco Roccetti, and Bruno Zamborlin for the 2009 6th IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference, published on 2009-01-13. In January 2010, Nicolas Rasamimanana, Frédéric Bevilacqua, Norbert Schnell, Fabrice Guédy, Emmanuel Flety, Come Maestracci, and Bruno Zamborlin contributed to the Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction. In 2010, Frédéric Bevilacqua, Bruno Zamborlin, Anthony Sypniewski, Norbert Schnell, Fabrice Guédy, and Nicolas Rasamimanana authored work in Gesture in Embodied Communication and Human-Computer Interaction. On 2010-06-15, Grace Leslie, Bruno Zamborlin, Norbert Schnell, and Pierre Jodlowski published "A Collaborative, Interactive Sound Installation" in the Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference. In 2011, Frédéric Bevilacqua, Norbert Schnell, Nicolas Rasamimanana, Bruno Zamborlin, and Fabrice Guedy published in Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems, while Bruno Zamborlin, Giorgio Partesana, and Marco Liuni presented "(LAND)MOVES" at the Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) on 2011-05-15. In 2012, Mari Kimura, Nicolas Rasamimanana, Frédéric Bevilacqua, Bruno Zamborlin, Bruno Schnell, and Emmanuel Flety authored "Extracting Human Expression For Interactive Composition with the Augmented Violin" for the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. On 2014-01-15, Bruno Zamborlin, Frédéric Bevilacqua, Marco Gillies, and Mark D'Inverno published "Fluid gesture interaction design: Applications of continuous recognition for the design of modern gestural interfaces" in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems.