State of the art on audience research within NIME: a systematic literature review

Davide Baldo, and Raul Masu

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic review of NIME research addressing the role of the audience in musical performance. By analysing 99 papers from the NIME proceedings, we examine how audiences are engaged, studied, and conceptualized across participatory and non-participatory contexts. Our analysis highlights transparency and learning curve as two recurring dimensions shaping audience engagement in technologically mediated performances. The paper aims to provide a structured overview of current approaches and to support more methodologically grounded future research on audience experience.

Citation

Davide Baldo, and Raul Masu. 2026. State of the art on audience research within NIME: a systematic literature review. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784056 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_10,
 abstract = {This paper presents a systematic review of NIME research addressing the role of the audience in musical performance. By analysing 99 papers from the NIME proceedings, we examine how audiences are engaged, studied, and conceptualized across participatory and non-participatory contexts. Our analysis highlights transparency and learning curve as two recurring dimensions shaping audience engagement in technologically mediated performances. The paper aims to provide a structured overview of current approaches and to support more methodologically grounded future research on audience experience.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {10},
 author = {Davide Baldo and Raul Masu},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784056},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {12},
 pages = {78--89},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/EmDTJAsQm28},
 title = {State of the art on audience research within NIME: a systematic literature review},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_10.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}