STEIM WIRE

Montgomery, Will. 2013. “Machines for Living”. In Wire. 243. 28-35.

04.04.2022

STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) is a center for research and development of new electronic music and media art instruments. They created a small computer that made possible the real-time translation of sensor data into MIDI. Revolutionary for electro music. Repetetive beats are long gone. STEIM adapted to the musicians body. What STEIM does is on the borderline between body and data to create a strong connection between music and musician.

Notes:

• „How can we make new instruments that we can rely on – something stable as a guitar or saxophone?“ - Takuro Mizuta
• “With the early laptop stuff, where you had a guy behind a glowing Apple logo, music and performance were really separated,” he remarks. “You had this fantastically expressive music, but the most unexpressive person behind it. We try to connect the two.
• The moment of performance is a unique one
• “The successful projects were theones in which we established a longterm relationship with the artists,” he says. “This required the artists to be interested in the process of instrument design or have an affinity with the technology, otherwise they would be too frustrated by the tedious process or just simply lose interest and move on to another idea.”

In 2020 STEIM has stopped its operations. This harsh decision was made when our request for funding was denied.

What do Prototypes Prototype?

Sanders, E. (2013). "Perspectives on Participation in Design". Transcript Verlag.

Notes:

• It is common practice to build prototypes in order to represent different states of an evolving design, and to explore options.
• What role will the artifact play in a user’s life? How should it look and feel? How should it be implemented?
• Purpose
• Interactive computer systems are complex.
• Prototypes provide the means for examining de- sign problems and evaluating solutions.