Transmitting Digital Lutherie Knowledge: The Rashomon Effect for DMI Designers

As the field around computer-mediated musical interaction drives attention to its sociotechnical, political and epistemological exigencies, it becomes important to be guided by disability studies, and for researchers and designers of accessible digital musical instruments (ADMIs) to foreground the lived experience of disabled musicians. This resonates with the movement to promote disability justice in HCI. In this paper, we introduce a case study of the design of a string-less guitar, which was developed in collaboration with a guitarist who lost his ability to play due to impairment. We present this work as an exploration of the Rashomon effect, a term that refers to the phenomenon of multiple witnesses describing the same event from their own perspective. We argue that the Rashomon effect is a useful way to explore how digital musical instrument (DMI) designers respond to NIME's interdisciplinarity, and to reflect on how we produce and transmit knowledge within our field

Making space for material entanglements: A diffractive analysis of woodwork and the practice of making an interactive system

A shift in perspective is underway in design research and human-computer interaction (HCI) from humans as the centre of attention to considering complex assemblages of human and non-human stakeholders. While this shift is often approached from a broad ecological level, there is opportunity for a more local shift in understanding our day to day meeting with the material world. Drawing on the posthuman theories of Karen Barad, we explore the creation of a digital interactive system as a material-discursive practice in which matter and culture are inseparably entangled. We seek a fresh look at the process rather than the outcome of interactive system design through a diffractive reading of four traditional woodworking practices and an auto-ethnographic account of the development of a digital sensor and actuator apparatus as a way to find alternative ways of attending to materials in HCI

Exploring Experiences with New Musical Instruments through Microphenomenology

This paper introduces micro-phenomenology, a research discipline for exploring and uncovering the structures of lived experience, as a beneficial methodology for studying and evaluating interactions with digital musical instruments. Compared to other subjective methods, micro-phenomenology evokes and returns one to the moment of experience, allowing access to dimensions and observations which may not be recalled in reflection alone. We present a case study of five micro-phenomenological interviews conducted with musicians about their experiences with existing digital musical instruments. The interviews reveal deep, clear descriptions of different modalities of synchronic moments in interaction, especially in tactile connections and bodily sensations. We highlight the elements of interaction captured in these interviews which would not have been revealed otherwise and the importance of these elements in researching perception, understanding, interaction, and performance with digital musical instruments