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@joe.wright set the channel purpose: Paper Session 5: NIME / Practice / Taxonomies

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Hi @hassan.hussain5 @joe.wright @niccolo.granieri I'm presenting tomorrow, I wonder if one of my co-authors could get a link to join the zoom panel as well? I recall an email that said only the first three authors would get links emailed to them, but he's the very last author on the paper.

Papers for this session. *Click::RAND. A Minimalist Sound Sculpture* Paper 27 in proceedings *A NIME Of The Times: Developing an Outward-Looking Political Agenda For This Community* Paper 31 in proceedings *Symbiosis: a biological taxonomy for modes of interaction in dance-music collaborations* Paper 107 in proceedings *Digital Musical Instruments as Research Products* Paper 86 in proceedings *Soma Design for NIME* Paper 93 in proceedings

Zoom link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77393214861?pwd=a2drM1FzMlpSVzlWKzVOUTlCZmw0dz09

** Live in 10 minutes with paper session 5 - see you there! (zoom link in message above!!)

Just in case we have issues with Zoom Captions, this is the link for the external captions: https://www.streamtext.net/player?event=NIME230720

If you want to ask a question in response to a paper, please indicate in your message to which paper presentation you are responding. Either by mentioning the title of the paper or using the @ to direct it to the presenter. This will make it easier for people who watch the presentations later (due to being in different time zones), and then want to see what questions came, to follow the conversation.

we're live now!

Does anyone have any questions for @paul.dunham and his Click::RAND?

I love the video and the Jonathan Ive-like delivery!

slightly unrelated to the device, I'm interested in what about randomness inspires him

Beautiful work @paul.dunham - could you say something about your thinking about the relationship between light and sound?

@paul.dunham I love the minimal aspect of this piece, but have you considered interacting with the relays with amplified telephone coils or EMF detectors? This could add an optional performative element

also any prior art/ early prototypes? Click blocks is an interesting choice, has he experimented with any other audio types

ZOOM noise cancellation removing the clicking noise

additionally, has he tried running cellular automata rulesets on his blocks? @paul.dunham

The second paper presentation is starting now, by @f.morreale

Remember to @ your questions to the appropriate author, we?re now on @f.morreale

Hi @a.r.jensenius Just answered. As I said, it was to create a connection to the movement of the rhythmic elements. As the binary sequences move right to left as less to most significant bits, it's slightly disruptive to the normal way we read a text as well.

@robert.blazey1 Yes. I have been using an Elecktrolusch EMF transducer to hear the EMF resonance as another medium. I've half jokingly saif it would be a good companion CD for the various compositional forms.

@paul.dunham a kind of director's commentary?

@f.morreale making some excellent points so far about democratisation of music-making *not* being a (primarily) technical problem! :clap:

@f.morreale could you clarify who's considered 'non-expert' musician in your paper?

Hi @contact My main interest is in the rhythmic spaces that, at times, create a disruptive elemtn to the rhythmic patterns. Using a book of random numbers was a way of using a large dataset and exploring the many ways of representing this as a series of rhythms. In this work, as the marks and spaces of binary numbers.

@f.morreale your paper is very inspiring!

necessary discussion in this context, looking forward to reading the entire paper

@f.morreale perhaps the focus should be on instrument-makers, rather than music-makers. In the themes of my artist association, we write: "At iii we support playful and meaningful labor, encouraging ?consumers? to become ?inventors? through the example of innovative artistic practice. Understanding technology is not about downloading the latest update. It has to do with how to shape the tools that we use to serve our own individual goals and purposes, in other words : humans must be tool makers before they can be responsible tool users." (see https://instrumentinventors.org/themes/)

Indeed! :exploding_head:

@f.morreale This is fascinating and thought-provoking.

@f.morreale Do you think the NIME community is ready for an ontological turn?

:clap::clap::clap: That was great @f.morreale et al

I'm not to sure of the link between capitalism and novelty... Are you framing capitalism more in general as a culture centred around ever-increasing progress around a single metric?

An inspiring and thought-provoking paper @f.morreale , thank you!

@f.morreale can you read us the Zuboff quote form the last slide? It disappeared from the screen very quickly!

@f.morreale :fire::fire::fire:

V. glad to see Zuboff quoted here!

Many important points raised by @f.morreale et al. I totally agree with your comments, and would love to see more of a truly interdisciplinary approach. But what/who would we possibly loose along the way?

Really insightful paper @f.morreale & Co. Really enjoyed it!

Everyone should read 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism ...'

@f.morreale Great paper. I was just thinking about a NIME periodical while trying to digest this whole conference in a few days.

Very interesting paper.

Fantastic talk! Would a shift away from novelty force a rename to ?IME?? :slightly_smiling_face:

@f.morreale In a complex and interdisciplinary community like NIME, do you think it would be possible to have a unique view as a community to those issues you presented?

@contact not with this work. My PhD is based on a series of work with the 'click' as the primary sound source. I have used this is works including Brownie Box cameras (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGYChXNUu1g) and telegraph keys (relaying tweets) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNKPfeF_k0Q). My next work uses clicks from a series of MFC scanner heads.

great answer

@abi "How are we *not* ready for this ontological turn?" :fire::fire::fire:

@f.morreale Great presentation. I think there is a real lack in critical approaches to technoclogical development in artisitc domain. I'm wondering whether it could be possible to shift from a micro-political approach to a more macro-political approah?

@f.morreale I think 5 minutes Q&A is too short for such a provocative paper. I suggest transforming it into a continuous workshop or community discussion!

I'ME thinking therefore I Am?

@contact No but that could be a good audio visual presentation mode

Thank you for a great presentation! Very interesting paper and so many important points that need to be discussed within the research community :clap: @f.morreale @a.mcpherson @abi

can anyone give me a tiny 10 word summary of the last presi? I only was able to join right now.

@f.morreale I think from the start the connection between the sensors that we use and their military application has been an issue. And I guess, if we are to be critical on these issues, then also the question where funding comes from for the institutes that a lot of the NIME research is produced comes into play. And how do we keep the things that we invent away from an abuse by other powers that find other applications for the sensing and interactions that we find?

@f.morreale How to avoid hyper moralistic stands and move towards political NIME practices?

@f.morreale et al :100: :100::100: Thanks so much for articulating these thoughts, particularly the critique of novelty and the role the idea plays. Too many questions for now, but I hope this is the start of some determined community-wide work :heart:

@robert.blazey1 an OST? :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi Vahakn, you can catch up here if you like https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz8WNY_I2S5QqPxOysnDOF90FtEIVrJam

@manolimoriaty is on now! remember to @ the author for questions.

The third presentation is starting now.

Yes, I miss spaces for debate in this conference, and I also miss spaces to discuss about the conference itself... Where could we discuss these issues like papers sizes and if references are counted or not?

@paul.dunham - thanks Paul for an excellent presentation - glad this work is now able to re-progress on campus!

@f.morreale Thank you for a great and timely presentation. Regarding the questioning of techno-solutionism, I am reminded of the text ?There?s no app for that? by Richard Heinberg from the Post-Carbon Institute: https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/theres-no-app-for-that/

Should the fear of being construed as "moralistic" by an invisible jury stop us from progressing our own discourse? I think as a community we're more courageous than that!

Actually, as a community I think we *should* be more courageous than that, we should be striving.

Please post questions for @manolimoriaty below.

@f.morreale Do you think the fact that we focus on novelty while developing musicianship is a slow process is problematic within NIME and academia as a whole?

Thanks so much for your comments and appreciation - I?ll go though them during the coffee break!

@manolimoriaty Thank you for your presentation, very inspiring. I've recently worked in a project where there was one choreographer and two dancers so that the aesthetic need and the actual interaction that produced the sounds came to form different people. So I realized that I needed a model considering an ecological approach to collaboration, how would you apply your model in a case like that.

@f.morreale @abi It may be in your paper (haven't read it yet) but what do you think about NIME's position in relation to the commercial music tech industry? Most of your examples were more focused on kickstarter, etc.

The link between novelty and capitalism is to do with the desire of newness...the libidinal energy of human nature which capitalism thrives upon...

@manolimoriaty Beautiful bio-inspired framework to discuss the dance and music relation! Great work!

@f.morreale Really inspiring and enjoyable presentation that is timely. How do I read you full paper? Excuse my ignorance.

@f.morreale Also, included in politics, what about the background history of some of the techniques we use? This has been a broader recent issue in music overall, but for instance percussive guitar techniques (as seen yesterday) have a history in African and African American innovations on the guitar.

thank!

It's paper 31 in the proceedings. :slightly_smiling_face:

@f.morreale et al. thank you so much for the wonderful presentation! :100: The technology-embedded relations of power that you underlined reminded me of the theoretical concept of « apparatus » (« dispositif » in French) introduced by philosophers Foucault and Agambem. I wondered whether it had been already employed, or whether it could help, the framing and analysis of political tensions at stake in musical interfaces? Thanks again, looking forward to reading your full paper! :heart:

Also here: http://instrumentslab.org/data/fabio/NIMEofTheTimes.pdf

@manolimoriaty Thank you for this fascinating presentation. I'm interested to know more about how the different modes of interaction have influenced your own work. Have you found that particular modes of interaction are more/less important at certain stages in the creative collaborative process? In your experience, how do the modes of interaction change as you and the collaborator get to know each other's work?

@manolimoriaty Great insights, thanks! The tight connection between music and dance, usually makes it hard to make it clear that interactive control over the sound is going on in dance, for the audience.

proceedings are accessible from the conference hub page https://nime2020.bcu.ac.uk/conference-hub/

@manolimoriaty and thank you for a very clear and original presentation! Great to witness your attention to taxonomies and the way you've mobilised past NIME work to analyse these - I'll follow up with questions when I've had time to properly digest!

Cultural appropriation is a really great example of something our community could be engaging with - I think we should be examining everything we use, from musical styles to manufacturing processes to theoretical departures. @marije brought up the history of sensors as militaristic technologies, which is a prime example of these latent themes.

Great talk @manolimoriaty !

@manolimoriaty Thank you for your presentation. Could be interesting to extend the analysis you proposed to more wider and detailed repertoire. Moreover, I guess that recent dance/music creation represent a novel shift in terms of modes of interaction.

@manolimoriaty Really interesting take on language as a powerful tool for overcoming barriers to understanding across discipline and cultures

In a similar vein this reminded me of Heidegger's and Dourish's 'Embodied interaction'? What are your thoughts on these perspectives with regard to your own work? @f.morreale

@j.harrison @robert.h.jack are on now! remember to @ the author with questions.

Interesting talk @manolimoriaty do you now embrace mostly collective work approaches vs directive?

@manolimoriaty Thank you, that was a really helpful answer. I'm also collaborating with choreographers at the moment. I'm looking forward to learning more about your work.

@manolimoriaty very nice presentation. Need to read your paper before I have a good question, but thanks for developing this taxonomy!

Thank you for the great questions, I'll make sure to answer each over the break, and more than happy to continue discussions later as well!

@robert.h.jack At SARC we've been enjoying the word "proto-instrument" for something like the Strummi where it's more about the exploration of what the instrument could be rather than the actually fixed end instrument itself.

@robert.h.jack @j.harrison What differences did you perceive when Strummi changed from tabletop to a more approximate instrumental inheritance to the guitar posture (considering users and your impressions)?

Very fascinating research @robert.h.jack @j.harrison. I wonder if you can think of other qualities to define ?research products? that specifically apply to NIMEs (in addition to the 4 listed by Odom for the broader HCI context)?

@robert.h.jack @j.harrison Do you think that Research Products can be related to Speculative Design (Speculative Everything by Dunne and Raby)?

@robert.h.jack @j.harrison ?functionally complete within a performance context? beautifully put!

Sure, we need more of that. And nothing should stop us our discussions and discourses. I just think that it is also important to translate critique into practices (e.g. initiatives, tools, artistic explorations) embracing our reflections.. And I wonder how to do that in the context of your paper..

:clap: :clap: :clap: @j.harrison I want a Strummi for Xmas

Seconded!

Very nice @robert.h.jack @j.harrison @a.mcpherson! Could you explain more about how the "prototype" and "research product" categories relate to the process towards commercial products?

@j.harrison @robert.h.jack @a.mcpherson Do you believe that for cultural integration, the way an instrument looks is as important as how it sounds and works? Did you carry out any research evaluating from users the importance of how it looks?

Tabletop or the guitar-postured one?

@robert.h.jack These aspects of practical usability are really important: that is a key to 'tourability', and has to do with how quickly things break, can be repaired or replaced, weight and bulkiness, chosen connectors, etc.

I mean.. Taking Fabio's point that propose your paper as a starting point.

Fantastically useful distinction - with many uses out in the wider HCI world @robert.h.jack @j.harrison @a.mcpherson!

Hi @j.harrison et al thanks for the great talk and work. I?m interested in the area between prototype and product. Your examples between the two generations of strummi are really revealing and helpful. I wonder how NIME creators can reflect on their instruments and identify what features are ?prototypical? and that might need work - is it obvious to the designer or does it emerge from fieldwork?

Absolutely! I don't think we meant to suggest that we should only think and talk about these things, but currently we have a deficit even of vocabulary to describe these things within NIME so it's unlikely it will develop into practice on its own. It's been two decades now and this stuff hasn't yet made it into either discourse or practice in any consistent way, which may be evidence that these issues are unlikely to bubble into practice on their own.

and predictability of when they break (during transport, or during playing)

@juan.jpma is up now! be sure to @ the author for questions about his presentation. presentation number 5 in session number 5

@robert.h.jack @j.harrison @a.mcpherson as an aside, it strikes me that a conventional musical score as produced by a composer/research has many of the qualities you describe.

@info041 Thanks for your question, the answer is that I definitely do not favour one mode of collaboration over others. Quite like all other social interactions, to presuppose a type of engagement would remove the organic development of a relationship. Personally, I find all modes equally enjoyable to work with, and I feel directive collaborations are misunderstood as authoritarian, which is not true: If i serve as the instigator, directive control allows me to form a specific idea I have in mind - on the other side, following the direction of others liberates me from having to deal with the non-creative side of practice, and I can concentrate on creating an interesting score/interaction design, within the constraints placed by the director. In my experience, collective approaches work best among groups that are familiar with each other, whereas new collaborations are more efficient when they follow a directive or interactive approach. Of course, this is all subjective, and a reflection of my experiences!

Good question! My three-year-old niece has been experimenting with guitar-playing lately but she is not really there yet when it comes to motor skills for playing chords. Would be lovely to see how she would interact with the tabletop version :guitar:

@robert.h.jack @j.harrison @a.mcpherson I agree this question of finished-ness is pretty is gnarly in a musical context: are musical instruments not _always_ 'becoming' in some sense, because they're always entangled in a set of shifting social and material relations? IOW, is it ever possible to (really) talk about the artefact 'as it is' without neglecting the social?

I think it?s hard to untangle ?research products? from ?commercial products?. The ?product? term I suppose comes from trying to draw parallels with objects that we live with in every day life, and in terms of instruments and technology those things are likely to be commercial products, so there will be inherent similarities. However research products aren?t supposed to be about ?designing the best possible/most popular? thing but more about provoking interesting interactions in an ecologically valid setting

Thankyou!! We would love to see more Strummis in the wild. Hopefully one day soon

Yes, I understand, it would have been better to include a wider sample of works. The analysis can take place only if there is enough written information on the role and agency of the performers, which (sadly) is often overlooked in NIME and related communities. As I mention in the paper, this trend seems to be improving with more recent publications, which is of course a positive step towards higher integration and understanding between our disciplines.

What a fantastic session! I should have had a whole day only to digest everything that came up within these talks!

Thanks for the question. I?ll add that one of the major differences we see between the ?prototype? and ?product? categories of research artefacts is this idea of completeness ? they are taken as complete objects which will not change in the future, they are not placeholders for a future outcome.

You're very welcome, Sally! Thanks for your comment, more than happy to discuss later. I have looked at your concept of interpretation as improvisation, which inspired much of my approach in this paper!

Great, thanks. Makes sense! Still I guess there would be a difference between a _finished_ research product, and a mass-market product, after many iterations of engineering and testing.

@juan.jpma Amazing presentation, congratulations! Do you believe soma designed NIME implies in a more somatic musical interaction, where it could help the musician to perceive her or his soma while playing?

Thanks for the question, sorry, I didn't understood it earlier! As I mentioned in another answer, in my experience, collective approaches work best among groups that are familiar with each other, whereas new collaborations are more efficient when they follow a directive or interactive approach. Of course, this is all subjective, and a reflection of my experiences!

I also like Bill Gaver's formulation of 'cultural probes' https://research.gold.ac.uk/4720/1/p53-gaver.pdf

@juan.jpma thanks for the talk, does following such design principles also make you approach guitar playing as tasks to be accomplished ?

@juan.jpma A fantastic approach to NIME design! The way you presented opens up Soma for not only dance-music initiatives but also for instrumental product design.

@juan.jpma  convincing evidence that this is productive approach

Thanks Marije! Yes, the issue of transparency from the perspective of the audience also applies for performers who are not experts in HCI tech. NIME has been previously concerned with the issue form the audience perspective, and I feel this should be extended to the experience of the performer.

@juan.jpma great stuff, and love the "cushy pedal" - my (here nocturnal) images are being parasited though, by Pete Townshend being very physical with his guitar...

Thanks, Koray!

Great presentation @juan.jpma!!! I look forward to reading it! I've so many questions I'll be in touch!

Thank you! One of the work analysed is "Vrengt", so I would love to discuss with you whether my conclusions hold any water!

this?

@juan.jpma nice point, focus first on the bodily before the technological...

@diana.siwiak Huge thanks for being such an amazing chair!

or this?

links to the posters/demos https://nime2020.bcu.ac.uk/posters-and-demos-23rd/

you bet!

@juan.jpma Thanks very much for the great talk! :slightly_smiling_face: I was wondering whether there was research that has so far investigated how people would experience somatic interaction with non-soma-designed NIMEs? That might in turn nurture the soma design approaches that you et al. are creating?which I am really looking forward to!! :pray:

Thanks for the question. Both are certainly very important for the ?fit? of an instrument into an existing musical ecosystem. In the case of the rock band setting where the Strummi instruments were deployed, the cultural capital of the form of an electric guitar is very powerful, as was the miming of the guitar playing gestures. @j.harrison might have some more to add here.

We attempted to answer this question! See here: http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~andrewm/jharrison_nime2018.pdf I think what we found is that to a significant number of users, the aesthetic qualities and similarities to the guitar were an important factor, but this wasn?t universal. For instance, some guitarists were more focused on maintaining existing technique through the presence of guitar strings, while others preferred the instrument which allowed them to hold it in a similar way or looked most appropriate. I guess what it showed is that ?non-technical? features such as looks, materiality, small details like jack plugs and so on, are at least as equally worthy of consideration as the technical details.

Thanks @lamberto.coccioli and @fcac!

This was such an interesting session, and a perfect start to the day. Big thanks to everyone who presented!

Do you believe it would be a good idea to make some channels to carry out some of the discussions we started here? Specially the ones emerged from @f.morreale's presentation. I miss a space to talk about #inclusion-in-nime #submission-models, what do you think?

Thanks @laddy.cadavid-hinojos, hope you enjoy it!

We have a channel that was created yesterday (#nime-delivery-and-ecosystem): https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877 That I think can do the job here

Hopefully we are starting to have now a critical mass of reflections and researchers engaged with these issues - (more to come in day 4 @lauren.s.hayes, @adnan.marquez)..

But yes I think it would be fantastic to keep this going! :slightly_smiling_face:

The way the discussion keeps on going after the presentation seems to stay in pairs, ping ponging only between the presenter and the person who asked the question

Thank you again to all our amazing authors with fascinating presentations and insights. I encourage all our attendees to engage with the authors to keep these discussions going!

Thank you @diana.siwiak for being such a brilliant chair!!

In regards to the outlooking political agenda.. What about an indipendent NIME commity that critically "evaluate" new musical instruments launched in the market? :slightly_smiling_face:

The fieldwork was essential for us in terms of ironing out details such as jack plugs and unreliable buttons. In the original study we didn?t spend much time thinking about these aspects as I suppose we had the confidence of knowing we were in the controlled setting of our lab and could fix things very easily. It wasn?t until we took them out into the world that we realised how ?unfinished? they were!

Thanks for the comment Marije. Yes, totally agree. With this research product proposal we are in many way trying to find the language to speak about these often overlooked aspects of instrument design: the ?tourability? of an instrument can definitely be a make-or-break factor and impact an instrument?s uptake or acceptance in a musical context.

After so many years of research on "evaluation", who should do that if not us? :sweat_smile:

Great point @marije. @raul.masu and I have a forthcoming book chapter that discusses these aspects - I?ll share it with you once it?s ready if you wish

Thanks Simon!

great, should we keep these discussions on #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ?

You presentation was great, Jacob! I?ll be rewatching it after NIME when my attentions are less divided!

Definitely, existing works can be also be explored with this method. In this paper we definitely used it to generate new designs, but you could also assess existing experiences with it. And totally agree, NIME research can greatly inform this design method

Thanks for your answer, i guess I ask because I have a tendency to move towards collective work creation once I get to know the participants of the project but you are right familiarity with collaborators is the key to this and yes a diversity of approaches is what often takes place in the lived reality of making work. Thanks for presenting this taxonomy of collaborative approaches something to consider in our collaborative work with technology.

Thanks a lot @edmund.hunt!

Although that might turn to be a bit moralistic as well :zany_face:

Thanks Tom, so glad you enjoyed it!

yes, that would be great!

we were actually talking about this yesterday :smile:

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Yes thanks for this comment. Adding to this that you can get some great insights from leaving an instrument with someone unsupervised for long periods of time - something that can only be done if it?s sufficiently stable and not prone to failure

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Thanks Andrea for the question. I guess so, yes. The constant search for innovation is inherent in capitalism, which works only if you keep exploring new territories to exploit and commodify

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

@f.morreale @abi @a.mcpherson @p.stapleton Really interested in your outward facing ideals. Especially with regard to NIME's approach. We begun the discussion on the NIME event itself - being potentially somewhat closed to many communities due to its academic nature // structure. How to stay critical and exacting whilst being non-exclusive. Please see the discussion link - your thoughts on these ideas are really welcome. https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017DQ2MQE9/p1595415381099000

Thank you for being a great chair @diana.siwiak and a big thank you to all the other authors on the panel ? it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Like Steve mentioned I would also believe it does quite the opposite. I think this method instead aims to put the focus in more tacit aspects of the bodily experience which are not usually attended to. Also the goal would be to offer a new tool to your personal "design palette" to potentially generate interesting ideas

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Should we keep this discussion at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem ? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

Really great point. I think an additional advantage of deploying research artefacts in real-world settings is that they fit very nicely into long-term, ethnographically-informed studies - allowing you to zoom out from the instrument and consider the social context it?s being used in. In our case, the study we did highlighted that there was very little we could say about ?accessibility? that was inherent to the instrument alone, and there were some very interesting social factors going on that contributed to its success (or lack of it) as an accessible instrument

Thanks so much Alex, glad you enjoyed it!

Sorry for spamming all your questions! :sweat_smile: Since you mentioned that the paper was intended to be a starting point for a discussion involving more people, I took the freedom of hijacking all the questions so we could discuss it collectively at #nime-delivery-and-ecosystem channel. Do you like this idea? https://nime2020.slack.com/archives/C017HA3J877

What he said :point_up: thanks very much @diana.siwiak and everyone else. Really inspiring session

good! I hate to think what Townshend might have done with a cushy pedal - this looks like very hard surfaces stuff. I loved your reflection on balance and movement - then again, Pete's got a pretty good swing too!

That?s a good question @a.r.jensenius but I guess that bringing critical perspectives on social / political / cultural issues is almost inherently positive though. Do you have any specific concerns? Happy to hear your thoughts!

You're welcome! Yes, generation of trust is key for "good" collaborations

Great point Owen! Instruments in particular are some of the most culturally and socially charged artefacts. Trying to divorce them from this shifting tangle of societal value can only do them a disservice.

We have only done a very limited run of them so far but there hopefully will be more coming soon :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks Micheal, and yes I agree - that book is really exceptional and has been very inspirational for this paper.

Thanks @dave.casey! I think the ?novelty? aspect can stay there, but we can rethink what we mean with novel. Is the quality of being ?new? important enough to deserve our attention? Other innovative aspects that we could value are perhaps new perspectives, theories, frameworks?

I'll reference some points coming out of a private discussion with @laurel.pardue on the topic. With a disclamer: I'm not a musicologist. :smile: In what I'm going to say I'll make as many ethical mistakes as I will do technical ones, on the topic of tracing similarities between musical techniques coming from different cultures. In the specific case, the paper does a pretty poor job at acknowledging either of the two roots of PF, and in the presentation both references are either removed or made even more brief and imprecise. It's clearly easy to encourage cultural appropriation by not doing the proper homework and crediting who "shouts loudest" in a sense, through either Western media or music distribution in the West.

I would like to share a blog post written by Jonathan Rues who is part of the brilliant `iii` collective alongside @marije and others. I feel that Jon?s approach to instrument design and history resonates with much of what was discussed in this session: https://blog.bela.io/2020/06/05/hacking-the-banjo-jonathan-reus/

What's PF?

Thanks @andrea.giomi. I hope we could have a macro-political impact but possibly we should start with our own community!

Ah sorry, finger percussion?

@marije good points. I am not sure whether we can/should control how the technologies we create are appropriated in other contexts.. I guess that?s the downside of open-source? Many music technology companies (first and foremost Spotify) base their proprietary systems on a universe of small open-source contributions that were not likely to be developed to be part of a publicly listed company.

Percussive fingerstyle!

@leprotto.giacomo we have a few practical proposal and what you say about evaluating these instruments is actually very serious! I wish NIME 2021 will have a few submissions in which new commercial DMIs are evaluated. But also, we should keep having more theoretical / philosophical discussions, I don?t think we should be satisfied yet with what has been unpacked so far.

Thanks so much @o.green!

Thanks @amelbye01 - I was not familiar with that book, I?ll definitely check it out as it seems very much connected with these discussions!

I guess my question is related to what we mean by "bringing in" here. Would it be at a political or academic level, or both? The humanities researcher in me would love to see more reflection on the social/political/cultural/historical perspectives in all papers. Ideally, it should be considered as equally important as "evaluation" is today. But I guess that would also mean a shift towards a more humanities and social science-directed discourse than what we currently have. I think it would be great, but I am not sure how that would work for people coming from CS, engineering, etc. And if we want to develop such discussions at an academic level, it may be challenging to follow for many that are not familiar with such epistemologies.

@a.martelloni, you might be interested in Lucy Suchman's paper on a related topic: 'Striking Likenesses to Difference' (see attached).

At the same time, it's challenging from people arriving at NIME from outside CS/engineering disciplines, and unless they learn to express ideas in the way the CS/eng field can understand the viewpoints are largely excluded from NIME.

@laurel.pardue 100%. It makes sense that there must be something ?novel? in an academic context - otherwise there is no actual research contribution. However, we should ask ourselves what we mean with novel? as you say, if we keep making new instruments because that?s the only way to get to NIME instead of furthering our skills with what we have already created, well then we are downplaying musicianship. That being said, the exploration of ?new? solutions is in itself an artistic practice?. a lot to discuss!

I guess the place to start would be to consider how appropriate 'finish' is in this context, as that was probably the most problematic quality to translate over to NIME. Thoughts on alternative wording for this would be welcome!

Yes, good point!

I'm not suggesting that we privilege one way of seeing over any other, but rather that as a community it may be time to intentionally incorporate other perspectives.

Cool! Post-Carbon Institute and the website http://resilience.org is a great resource and uses systems theory to address environmental questions and their possible solutions.

I totally agree. As has been brought up many times in the past, I think it is time to critically review our peer review system. This is typically where papers/projects are stopped or shaped. The current system of 2-3 reviewers is not ideal to capture the complexity of what we are dealing with here, I think, unless you happen to be very lucky with the reviewers.

@a.r.jensenius in the paper we propose that NIME should engage with evaluating new commercial DMIs. We mostly focused on crowdfunding campaign as it seems to be the preferred way to commercialise the instruments that are open to ?non musicians?. However, I?d definitely like to read rigorous evaluations of other commercial DMIs.

thank you :smile:

> However, I?d definitely like to read rigorous evaluations of other commercial DMIs. Yes, that would be great! Next year, anyone?

Thanks @hugo.scurto - I would love to read some NIME papers framed with a Foucaldian lenses?that?s your job for next NIME! There are some musicologists that have engaged with Foucault?s philosophy though (Robert Prey, Jacques Attali, Patrick Burkart?) that could be a good starting point

The issue that I find is that focusing on "novel" especially in relation to instruments is that a lot of where things get really interesing is when someone has worked with an instument for a while and it fails or succeeds- you can't learn violin in a year- yet usually we're only judging results on what we'd see in a year (and that's being generous). At the beginning of NIME there was tons to be learned just by putting out 10,000 instruments and seeing what we could find out. But by now, we know a lot about what you can quickly learn (though there is plenty more to go). I'd argue we don't know a lot about things like "what effect does simplification have?" because that requires longer term research which involves possibly sticking with a novel technology that becomes less "novel" the longer it exists. It is also hard to do in a lab environment so less attractive for research with a short attention span.

It would be so valuable to have evaluations like these as, for example, 2-page papers. If they were presented in a paper-session type context that would be a great overview of NIME's take on the state of music technology for that year.

Very good points @o.green. Your paper "Agility and playfulness: technology and skill in the performance ecosystem" seems relevant to the discussion of context-specificity of DMIs. Is there an open access copy of this paper? https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1017/S1355771811000082

@corey2.ford thanks for the comment. Heidegger and other phenomenology scholars have been very inspirational for some of us. If you are interested, I suggest you to check Don Idhe?s postphenomenology theory, which expands Heiddeger?s theories of embodiment to also account for other possible human-technology relations. @a.mcpherson, @a.guidi and I have been done some postphenomenological research but haven?t really published anything yet!

Thanks for the references! I?ll probably dig a bit more into it in the near future :fire:

@laurel.pardue agreed. The same issue affects the possibility to run long longitudinal studies to assess, for instance, the extend to which a new instrument that oversimplifies music making (e.g. Roli Lumi) is beneficial/detrimental for a learner. How do you that? And what is the ground truth to compare it against? I would definitely not run this sort of studies using in-lab quantitative methodologies

Yes please, what @abi said!

I guess that if a DMI was actually well finished it won?t be a NIME? :)

Very good point @a.r.jensenius. As we briefly discussed during the workshops, the review process can go far further than merely gate-keeping. Even when a paper is rejected, a constructive set of reviews can greatly help the authors, especially with emerging/student researchers. A rebuttal process can be fundamental to this. I am aware that means more work, but once I am invested in reviewing a paper, I really don't mind following up about it in a month or so since I already know the paper quite well at that point.

Very good point @a.r.jensenius. As we briefly discussed during the workshops, the review process can go far further than merely gate-keeping. Even when a paper is rejected, a constructive set of reviews can greatly help the authors, especially with emerging/student researchers. A rebuttal process can be fundamental to this. I am aware that means more work, but once I am invested in reviewing a paper, I really don't mind following up about it in a month or so since I already know the paper quite well at that point.

I think this is a great idea, almost like the book review section at the end of a journal.

Exactly. We always talk about how great metareviews are, but an annual live metareview would be amazing.

@f.morreale Awesome, I shall check it out!!!

@hugo.scurto - @f.morreale, @a.guidi and I published a short bit about postphenomenology at the CHI 2019 Research through Design workshop: http://instrumentslab.org/data/andrea/2019CHIFinal.pdf

The discussions afterwards would be *fascinating.*

There's also a really interesting paper from @koray.tahiroglu et al. from Organised Sound which covers similar ground: "Digital Musical Instruments as probes: how computation changes the mode-of-being of musical instruments" https://research.gold.ac.uk/27107/24/digital_musical_instruments_as_probes_how_computation_changes_the_modeofbeing_of_musical_instruments.pdf

Sure, some people might be alienated by discourses that normally belong to the Humanities. I myself come from a CS background but have been increasingly exposed to philosophical and social narratives via CHI and other HCI. I think there is quality in being exposed to different methodologies and epistemologies! Maybe the challenge would be to keep a cohesive community, something that CHI is struggling with

And here's a paper in ToCHI this year which covers postphenomenology and a number of other interesting theories in the context of HCI; I suspect there could be relevance to NIME as well: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3364998?casa_token=hC2AXPuR0m4AAAAA:y1XIUqYGjHsreqLHdGFUM2RiJgHrtcWQ8PZr0w7WfwhtpQJ_BCbAQwmPFPBAo4d--bAVv7wAjZQ

@f.morreale As somebody from humanities, I was immediately hooked in with the insightful philosophical and social-political approach used in your paper. It was something that I was excited to see/hear at NIME and something I did not expect! I agree that using varied approaches + epistemologies would be an excellent way of extending and building on research carried out by this community!

@a.mcpherson super interesting. I will have a look on these. Thanks for sharing! :pray:

Whoever wants to evaluate the Soundbrenner Core, please get in contact. I?m happy to supply a test device!

@a.r.jensenius @robert.h.jack @j.harrison the ?Design as Research? wing of the Research through Design community has something to say about the distinction between design research and commercial products ? while all designed artifacts contain embedded knowledge, not everything we design is research. The processes differ by intent: RtD/DaR intends to produce knowledge for the research and practice communities, whereas commercial product design aims to make a commercially viable product. This intent trickles down to the rest of the design process. For example, design researchers are likely to ignore or de-emphasize questions of economics, manufacturability, distribution, effect on a corporate identity, etc. Then also, for a designed artifact to be research, it should be novel in the way that it integrates theory, user need, technology, and context, rather than only being a refinement of something that already exists in the research literature or in the commercial marketplace.

Great, explanation, thanks, that makes a lot of sense!

Thanks for your reply, Manoli. I think you answered the question, but it's also great to read your thoughts here. I'm particularly interested as I'm collaborating with 2 different choreographers at the moment. I really enjoy the collaborative process, but it has definitely been a learning experience for me. I'd be interested to read more about your work in this area.

Thanks @julian, we?ll definitely be in touch. I guess the first step would be to define a sort of evaluation protocol that is flexible enough to account for the different objectives of the various products.

I don't think it would be fair to say that a humanities approach has been completely missing from the NIME conferences. Right from NIME-01 there have been humanities oriented articles, though certainly in the minority. Note that work based in the humanities forms a constant strand at the CHI conference, and indeed some very influential researchers and works have come from humanities backgrounds. It would perhaps be worthwhile to go through the proceedings and try to do a kind of spectral analysis of articles taking approaches based in science/engineering/c.s./social sciences/arts. There are of course many hybrid works. On the other hand, it is probably the case that that purely humanities have a higher chance of encountering misunderstanding in the review procedure and it probably necessary to increase awareness of such factors so that NIME does not exclude important works due to inadequate or unfair peer-review.

I'm also wondering if there has been something like an 'Epistemologies & NIME' workshop in the past?

Another way to address this is via invited speakers willing to take a look at the conference and provide insight and guidance.

e.g. Bruno Latour was an invited speaker at CHI a few years ago.

'New' can mean the 'other possibilities' that Zuboff mentions in the quote at the end of @f.morreale's talk. Innovations in sustainability, access, social equity, etc... the evolution of 'human culture'. We should not restrict ourselves to the cynical definition of 'novelty', 'market disruption' and so on of late capitalism. *New* is what _*we*_ want it to be. Indeed Mark Fisher argued that actual novelty has diminished, especially in popular culture. The crowd-funding examples cited by @f.morreale would be examples of that, in my opinion. Another recommended test is Fisher's 'Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative'.

Disclaimer: my defense of the conference title and acronym is not unbiased :wink:

"Epistemologies & NIME" would be a great workshop next year. Anyone wants to organize?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that there is no humanities content, I think the criticism is that it occupies a second-tier status to the technical and engineering content, whereas NIME needs both at the same depth, rigour and importance.

Haha yes that?s true. Our device is a practice tool, and not an interface for musical expression in the stricter sense. For NIME classification and evaluation I liked the Dimension Space approach (Birnbaum, David, Rebecca Fiebrink, Joseph Malloch, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. ?Towards a Dimension Space for Musical Devices.? In _Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression_, 192?195, 2005. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085993http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085993.). But you?re right that different NIMEs are for different audiences, and it?s hard to find an evaluation system that fits them all.

Maybe it?s worth checking out Carolina Brum Medeiros? extensive review of DMIs presented at NIME over the years for some ideas: Brum Medeiros, Carolina, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. ?A Comprehensive Review of Sensors and Instrumentation Methods in Devices for Musical Expression.? _Sensors_ 14, no. 8 (July 25, 2014): 13556?91. https://doi.org/10.3390/s140813556.