Supra-Instrumental Interactions and Gestures

Special issue: Enaction and MusicInternational audienceConsidering the process of artistic creation to be deeply linked with technology, we propose a conceptual framework which gives a sense to the concept of artistic creation tools in the context of the computer. Starting from an initial, technology-free situation, we introduce the notion of musical instrument as the first appearance of technology in music. Then, introducing step by step the important technological mutations we characterize the creative process that is supported by each stage and the transaction or 'trade-off' which accompanies each change. Under the light of this analysis we discuss interactive multisensory simulation of physical objects, including gestural real-time interactions, as we have been developing for years in our laboratory. An important issue within this article is an attempt to finish with some harmful confusion which comes from too systematically classifying certain situations as instrumental under the pretext that they appeal to gesture and real-time sound production or processing. We present through the concepts of 'supra-instrumental gesture and interaction', several situations that, in non-real time (but also possibly in real-time), and even in the total absence of actual gesture (but also achieved with actual gestures), are more gestural and more instrumental than certain gesticulations effected with sophisticated input devices and real-time sound digital processing