Paper short abstract:

In what ways is sound an experimental object for STS? Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper discusses how the exhibition of an early synthesizer provided an occassion for research experiments between historians of technology, computing researchers, sonic artists and their publics.

Paper long abstract:

STS researchers have recently proposed studying sound as a way to open up and problematize in new and interesting ways some of the long standing debates in the field. This paper asks in what ways sound might be considered an experimental research object for STS?

Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper discusses an exhibition experiment with a recently rediscovered synthesizer from the early 1960s. A distinctly "un-sound" discovery - the synthesiser was never performed in public by its inventor, few recordings exist of it and it no longer functions as a musical instrument - the paper describes the artifice involved in exhibiting the synthesizer. I highlight how the process of exhibiting the syntheiszer provided an occassion for experimental research in the history of technology, computing research, sonic art to develop. Through participatory, practice-based and interactive approaches, these experiments mixed the repertoires of artists and researchers, their relations to the syntheiszer and to each other.

I use this case as an opportunity to explore whether, and in what ways, recent STS research on sound might be productively brought together with studies of public experiments. The exhibition not only assembled an electronic music audience for these researchers but also afforded researchers the opportunity to publicly test, in particular ways, the capacities of the synthesizer as a historical artefact, the interactivity of its interface, and its potential as a musical instrument. Attending to the artifice of this exhibition experiment, I explore what studies of sound technology might offer STS research on materials and devices of the public.