Developing Digital Musical Instruments. An Ethnographic Perspective on Design-Research

Kulturwissenschaften

Schindler, Johanna, Hinrichsen, Amelie

Developing Digital Musical Instruments. An Ethnographic Perspective on Design-Research

Schindler, Johanna, Hinrichsen, Amelie: Developing Digital Musical Instruments. An Ethnographic Perspective on Design-Research, Journal of Artistic Research, 2016 (unter Begutachtung).

Originalarbeiten in wissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften mit Review-Verfahren

With the aim of developing and designing a digital musical instrument, we invited a dancer, an experimental musician, and an acoustic musician for several improvisation sessions. We asked them to develop one-minute-solos according to a specific improvisation technique stemming from contemporary dance. Their impulses served the improvised design of a digital musical instrument. In Session #1, a selection of raw material (Styrofoam, cardboard tubes, transparent film, balloons) was used for the development of the solos. The inputs from Session #1 were then transformed into instrumental mockups, which were used for the improvisations in Session #2. To our knowledge, it is the first time such an improvisational approach was carried out in the design of musical instruments. This contribution follows two aims: Firstly, via a combination of both detailed ethnographic and “designed” analyses, we will describe behavioral patterns specific to each artist we could reveal in Session #1. These patterns changed significantly in Session #2, when the artists used instrumental mockups for their solos. Secondly, we will discuss the implications of the improvisational design approach with regards to the structure of the organized sessions and its implications for the ongoing research and design processes.

(im Begutachtungsverfahren)

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