Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Construction & Circulation of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Music Technology

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Introduction This project examines the practices of musician-inventors in Berlin, Germany who build and modify musical equipment. Specifically, it is an ethnographic study of how networks of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) music technologists are formed and how their structures, ideas, and building processes contribute to larger discourses about the invention, use, and repurposing of technologies. The research will bring together interdisciplinary approaches to music, technology, and society with new participant observation, interviews, and data collection. The overarching purpose is to provide a cogent account of independent innovation in contemporary sonic arts. DIY music technologists and the objects they create are entwined in socio-technical systems from which many paths and outcomes have yet to be explained. The central research question here is to determine how sound technologies, creativity, and knowledge production are linked and potentially transformed through the DIY process. Intellectual Merit This study investigates where the contemporary DIY ethos fits within the historical trajectory of hobbyism, amateurism, sound recording and production, and artistic and technological innovation, establishing what is unique about this specific, post-internet, post-globalization juncture. The topic probes the real-world usefulness of notions such as expertise, knowledge production, and innovation, as well as questioning barriers to access and education about technology. Viewing DIY music technology through the frameworks of Hacking and Folk Technology can contextualize this phenomenon within a broad range and scale of participating communities, revealing insights into human-technology interaction. Potential Broader Impacts The research may have broad implications for issues of circulation, access, and agency worldwide, as both non-Western metropolitan sites and increasingly connected rural sites share and create new modes of social interaction involving sound and technology. This new comparative study in Berlin complements a prior three years of research in New York City and ideally precedes further fieldwork in non-Western settings as part of the researcher?s long-term commitment to exploring nontraditional partnerships for connecting technology with the arts. Ultimately, the project aims to provide an entry point for understanding technologies in various geographical regions and contexts.