Musicking with dynamical systems: introducing a digitally-controlled analog no-input mixer

The no-input mixer is an appealing instrument for practitioners seeking a constant negotiation of their musical desires with the instrument's complex agency and affordances. Offering a simple setup, a re-invention of a traditional instrument, it resignifies an utilitaristic control space to a more obscure and surprising field of exploration, a fertile ground for artistic practices and languages to emerge. In the context of musicking with feedback instruments, i.e. their design, performance and experimentation, this project proposes a new hybrid device: an analog no-input mixer embedding a digitally controllable interface, introducing previously impossible interaction and mapping techniques (from storing, recalling, interpolating and sequencing of control points, to semi-automatic audio-driven mapping devices and agents), to evaluate their affordances on musical practices with the instrument and to cultivate the opportunity for novel languages and practices to emerge from them.