Considerations Towards Outdoor Impact Mitigation of Site-Related NIME Practice

Xinran Chen, Nicolò Merendino, Iurii Kuzmin, and Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Site-related NIME inevitably establishes relationships with the social and ecological realities of the site. In contrast to a large body of scholarship on longevity and fabrication, current sustainability discourses of NIME have seldom touched on the socio-ecological impacts of on-site practices. To support impact mitigation without overclaiming measurement or prescribing a single model, in this medium paper we position outdoor site-related NIME between artifacts and events, and incorporate insights from sustainability research on events into five reflexive considerations: stakeholders of the site, presence of personnel, materiality of artifacts, on site alterations & emissions, and the anthropocentricity of listening. These are offered as early stage prompts to make impacts visible while alternative designs and less intrusive deployments remain possible.

Citation

Xinran Chen, Nicolò Merendino, Iurii Kuzmin, and Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard. 2026. Considerations Towards Outdoor Impact Mitigation of Site-Related NIME Practice. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784034 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_2,
 abstract = {Site-related NIME inevitably establishes relationships with the social and ecological realities of the site. In contrast to a large body of scholarship on longevity and fabrication, current sustainability discourses of NIME have seldom touched on the socio-ecological impacts of on-site practices. To support impact mitigation without overclaiming measurement or prescribing a single model, in this medium paper we position outdoor site-related NIME between artifacts and events, and incorporate insights from sustainability research on events into five reflexive considerations: stakeholders of the site, presence of personnel, materiality of artifacts, on site alterations \& emissions, and the anthropocentricity of listening. These are offered as early stage prompts to make impacts visible while alternative designs and less intrusive deployments remain possible. },
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {2},
 author = {Xinran Chen and Nicolò  Merendino and Iurii Kuzmin and Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784034},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {7},
 pages = {8--14},
 title = {Considerations Towards Outdoor Impact Mitigation of Site-Related NIME Practice},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_2.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}