An enactive approach to digital musical instrument design

Revision with unchanged content. Digital musical instruments bring about new problems and prospects for mu­si­cal performance. In An enactive approach to digital musical instrument de­sign, Newton Armstrong argues that these problems and prospects are theo­re­tical and philosophical as much as they are technical. Drawing on the en­active cognitive science of Francisco Varela and others, as well as the phen­omen­ology of Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Armstrong out­lines a model of interaction based around circular chains of embodied inter­de­pen­dency between performer and instrument, and examines the ways in which technological resistance to human action plays a key role in the in­cre­men­tal acquisition of performative skill. This book is addressed to musicians and artists working with interactive systems, to theorists of new media, and to researchers and designers interested in human factors in computing.