Presentation at CIM '19
28 September 2019
On September 28th, I presented a position paper about the topic of the book at the Conference for Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM) in Graz.
The book of abstracts can be downloaded here. My contribution “Unravelling the question of mapping and the aesthetics of digital musical instruments” can be found on page 30 and 31.
To share the conclusion of my talk:
The process of mapping is an interdisciplinary effort and requires both engineering and artistic skills.
While common strategies, tools and elements are used, each instrument is highly individual and often changing over time. New strategies, tools and elements are continually invented, embraced and (in some cases) abandoned again.
The process is situated in time and relates to the available technical means and current artistic practices: it is connected to the music paradigms embedded in available software and hardware, and how artists adopt, change, break and transcend these paradigms.
As such it is an enactive process of codevelopment of artistic concepts and technology. Also the resulting instruments may be seen as embodiments of the artistic concepts and performative expression of the artist. Conversely, the instruments are physical objects that allow the exploration and development of these aesthetic concepts.