Digital musical instruments as probes: how computation changes the mode-of-being of musical instruments

This article explores how computation opens up possibilities for new musical practices to emerge through technology design. We apply the notion of the cultural probe to consider the musical instrument as an experimental device that yields findings in music, sociology, and acoustics. As part of artistic-research methodology, the object as a probe is a form of questioning that artists can use to gain answers to questions that are often formulated outside language. This article introduces in various ways how computation plays an important role in the development of the authors’ personal performance practices that reflect the changed mode of new musical instruments and our relations with them.