Not Hyper, Not Meta, Not Cyber but Infra-Instruments

John Bowers, and Phil Archer

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

As a response to a number of notable contemporary aesthetic tendencies, this paper introduces the notion of an infra-instrument as a kind of ‘new interface for musical expression’ worthy of study and systematic design. In contrast to hyper-, meta- and virtual instruments, we propose infra-instruments as devices of restricted interactive potential, with little sensor enhancement, which engender simple musics with scarce opportunity for conventional virtuosity. After presenting numerous examples from our work, we argue that it is precisely such interactionally and sonically challenged designs that leave requisite space for computer-generated augmentations in hybrid, multi-device performance settings.

Citation

John Bowers, and Phil Archer. 2005. Not Hyper, Not Meta, Not Cyber but Infra-Instruments. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1176713

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{Bowers2005,
 abstract = {As a response to a number of notable contemporary aesthetic tendencies, this paper introduces the notion of an infra-instrument as a kind of ‘new interface for musical expression’ worthy of study and systematic design. In contrast to hyper-, meta- and virtual instruments, we propose infra-instruments as devices of restricted interactive potential, with little sensor enhancement, which engender simple musics with scarce opportunity for conventional virtuosity. After presenting numerous examples from our work, we argue that it is precisely such interactionally and sonically challenged designs that leave requisite space for computer-generated augmentations in hybrid, multi-device performance settings.},
 address = {Vancouver, BC, Canada},
 author = {Bowers, John and Archer, Phil},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1176713},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 keywords = {Infra-instruments, hyperinstruments, meta-instruments, virtual instruments, design concepts and principles. },
 pages = {5--10},
 title = {Not Hyper, Not Meta, Not Cyber but Infra-Instruments},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2005/nime2005_005.pdf},
 year = {2005}
}