Paper and WIP at NIME 2023

I have a couple of contributions accepted for the upcoming NIME 2023. Thanks and congratulations to all my co-authors!

The O in NIME: Reflecting on the Importance of Reusing and Repurposing Old Musical Instruments
Raul Masu, Fabio Morreale, Alexander Jensenius

In this paper, we reflect on the focus of “newness” in NIME research and practice and argue that there is a missing O (for “Old”) in the framing of our academic discourse. A systematic review of the last year’s conference proceedings reveal that most papers do, indeed, present new instruments, interfaces, or pieces of technology. Comparably few papers focus on prolongation of existing NIMEs. Our meta-analysis identifies four main categories from these papers: (1) reuse, (2) update, (3) complement, (4) long-term engagement. We discuss how focusing more on these four types of NIME development and engagement can be seen as an approach to increase sustainability.

TAILSPIN : An Inquiry into the Audio-Visual Feedback Equilibrium
(Work in Progress track)
Costa Colachis Glass, Fabio Morreale

This paper is an exploration and creative inquiry into the equilibrium of audio-visual feedback. Following a Research-Through Design approach, we actualized this inquiry by designing an ad-hoc audio-visual instrument: TAILSPIN. In this instrument, a closed audio-visual and physical loop is created between a microphone and its speaker, and a camera and its display, which are controlled by a performer. The tenets of feedback are then understood through the contextual research of cycles and loops in our natural environment. In this paper, we present the technical details of the instrument and offer novel insights into the audio-visual equilibrium within the context and intricacies of our own natural environment and organic feedback systems.