Pop-up for Collaborative Music-making

This paper presents a micro-residency in a pop-up shop and collaborative making amongst a group of researchers and practitioners. The making extends to sound(-making) objects, instruments, workshop, sound installation, performance and discourse on DIY electronic music. Our research builds on creative workshopping and speculative design and is informed by ideas of collective making. The ad hoc and temporary pop-up space is seen as formative in shaping the outcomes of the work. Through the lens of curated research, working together with a provocative brief, we explored handmade objects, craft, non-craft, human error, and the spirit of DIY, DIYness. We used the Studio Bench - a method that brings making, recording and performance together in one space - and viewed workshopping and performance as a holistic event. A range of methodologies were investigated in relation to NIME. These included the Hardware Mash-up, Speculative Sound Circuits and Reverse Design, from product to prototype, resulting in the instrument the Radical Nails. Finally, our work drew on the notion of design as performance and making in public and further developed our understanding of workshop-installation and performance-installation.