Flows of Inhomogeneous Matter: Improvising an augmented violin

Abstract

This article reflects on how personal digital musical instruments evolve and presents an augmented violin developed and performed by the author in improvised performance as an example. Informed by the materialism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, an image of ‘flows of inhomogeneous matter’ provokes reflection on a mode of production common to artisanal craftmanship and digital lutherie alike, namely the pre-reflective skilfulness negotiating the singularities of inhomogeneous matter with the demands of the production – a process which itself may be thought of as im-pro-visation (‘un-fore-seen’). According to Gilbert Simondon, all technical objects develop in this way: functional interdependency emerges when abstractly ideated elements begin to enter into unanticipated synergistic relationships, suggesting a material logic dependent on unforeseen potentialities. The historical development of the acoustic violin exemplifies such an evolution, with, like all technical objects, additional latent potential. Digital artists can work like artisanal craftsmen in tinkering with technical elements, teasing out their synergies through abductive, trial-and-error experimentation. In the context of developing digital musical instruments, model-free design of real-time digital signal processing symmetrising action and perception yields highly refined results. Like musical improvisation – constrained by time – improvised development of these instruments turns the material obstacles into their very means of realisation.

Collectively playable wearable music: Practice-situated approaches to participatory relational inquiry

“…These architectures resemble “a patchwork of subnetworks assembled by a complex process of tinkering, rather than a system that results from some clean, unified design” (Varela et al, 2017 ). The ongoing processes of refinement we pursue in developing these instruments abductively, through participation and without a priori models, actualizes a key affordance of real-time media processing with interpreted software programming environments, namely that one must no longer contend with a delay between composition and sonic actualization (Thorn and Sha, 2019 ; Thorn, 2021a ). Rather, continuous reshaping of a body of code through trial-and-error tinkering refines and symmetrizes the sensorimotor dynamics of embodied action and perception, which are undifferentiated in the enactive approach.…”

“… 6 These patches were adapted from the first author’s augmented violin practice (Thorn, 2021a ). See the video at for earlier documentation of him experimenting with adapting violin bowing sensing to full-body movement practice.…”

“…Pulsar synthesis generates pulses or tones that emulate classical electronic synthesis, but with more powerful digital control techniques. The first author has explored an implementation of polyphonic pulsar synthesis to generate rich textures in other work (Thorn, 2021a ).…”