Patching Possibilities: Resisting Normative Logics in Modular Interfaces

Publication Title

Modular Synthesis

Document Type

Book Chapter

Department or Program

Music

Publication Date

4-23-2024

Abstract

This chapter analyzes how notions of sexual difference, gender, human connectivity, and power manifest through metaphor and organizational logic in modular synthesizer patching interfaces. Drawing from media archeology and feminist science and technology studies, the modular interface is analyzed as a cultural artifact, critiquing the metaphor of “male” and “female” in patching interfaces, and “modularity” as an organizing principle. Examples are drawn from historical and contemporary interface design to technically and poetically analyze how modular interfaces suggest and subvert normative notions of bodies, connection, and power. As such, the argument is made that metaphors and logics materialized in technical design can generate new performative, expressive, and relational possibilities.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003219484-14

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS