From Circuitry to Live Improvisation (and Back): Hacking One’s Way Through Contemporary Electronic Music

Abstract

Nicolas Collins is Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Influenced by Alvin Lucier, David Tudor and punk culture, his work is at the intersection of experimental music, computer music, and sound art. During his career, he invented numerous musical devices by hijacking or altering existing technologies: CD players that play the sound produced by a disc when it is paused (Broken Light, 1991); attached to a trombone, a signal processing system that combines a digital reverb and a Commodore 64 motherboard (Tobabo Fonio, 1986); or discarded electronic circuits “reanimated” by probes that interact with other electronic components to create feedback (Salvage, 2008). He also wrote Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking (Routledge, 2009), an influential introduction to the world of musical hacking. In this interview, Nicolas Collins describes his journey as an artist at the crossroads of experimental music, computer music and sound art, and explains why hacking matters that much within today’s artistic practices.