Eurorack to VCV Rack: Modular Synthesis as Compositional Performance

Justin Randell and Hillegonda Rietveld utilize an auto-ethnographic approach to explore specific patching techniques that enable what they describe as an embodied approach to creative musical synthesis. Among the central components of such an approach is the move away from the screen. As many modular enthusiasts are keen to point out, it is the tactile and physical character of modular synthesis that is elemental to not only its distinctiveness from the digital, but to the very nature of modular creative practice. Modular synthesizers have an affective and aesthetic dimension to them in so much that they invite touch and by design are created to be physically re-arranged and manipulated. As such, the performativity of modular synthesis not only extends the playing of them, but also in their assemblage and re-assemblage as users create and reconfigure their systems.