Hidden Influences in Music Technology: An Approach to Coding Practice

The mutual influence of technology and culture has been historically confirmed. Recently, the degree to which technology is being influenced by profit motives has increased dramatically, so much so that technological platforms largely influence the public to meeting these motives. In the context of current musical creative practices, we feel that freedom is being restricted by the commercial industry. In fact, we argue that aspects of existing platforms for musical creation serve mainly to further control culture according to certain ideological, profit-based assumptions. In response, we are taking a critical theory approach to developing a platform based on collective collaboration and aimed at developing a coding praxis for music technology. Our approach seeks to illuminate how ideological assumptions are embedded in music technology practices today, and to make explicit all levels of user interaction. Our goal is to preclude the possibility of a single ideology being used to define the goals of software-based music systems.