Abstract:

This article provides historical context for the emergence of ‘mapping’ as a key conceptual metaphor in the context of digital musical instrument (DMI) design and use. In addition to a consideration of different technical implementations, we offer a critical assessment of the tendency to over-generalise mapping as a universal model for both building instruments and analysing them in retrospect. This reification of mapping as a design model, as well as of the dimension spaces of sound and gesture being mapped, is read through a media-theoretical lens, drawing on recent work from interface studies to show how mapping actively constructs ideological relationships between performers and underlying systems of musical representation. While acknowledging the practical utility of traditional formulations of mapping in DMIs, we focus on issues arising from their over-generalisation, including the sometimes-misleading impression of representational stability, the suitability of spatial metaphors, and the assumption of unidirectionality and temporal stasis. In closing, the article explores alternatives based on a relational approach to mapping as an ‘intra-active’ process that is bidirectional at every step, fluid in its distinction of categories, and more dynamic across its variegated temporalities.

Recommended citation: McPherson, Andrew, Landon Morrison, Matthew Davison, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. ‘On Mapping as a Technoscientific Practice in Digital Musical Instruments’. Journal of New Music Research 53, nos 1–2 (2024): 110–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2024.2442356. https://doi.org/10.1080/09298215.2024.2442356