Porous Instruments: Synthesizers and the Circulation of Cultural Value

Electronic sound pervades our experiences: A sci-fi thriller opens with whirrs, clicks, and hums; teenagers rave to trance-inducing dance music; hip hop producers create sick beats from drum machines. How did electronic sound become so ubiquitous? What do synthesizers mean to us? I investigate how sounds and ideas move through technologies like the Moog, the Yamaha DX-7, and the vocoder. Though synthesizers might appear to be black boxes, they are porous to change and revision at every stage. I explore novelty with stories of play, experimentation, and mis-use. I focus on how users create social belonging and identity as they synthesize electronic sounds. Synthesis means discovering and recycling, all in the same day, and anyone can do it. Synthesizers are incredible tools for making sense of the complex worlds we navigate—tools for bringing together commercial with art spheres, for meshing the past with the present. Synthesizers foster social belonging and the circulation of cultural value.

Jennifer Iverson is a scholar of electronic music, sound studies, and disability studies. She is an Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. She is currently writing a book titled Porous Instruments, which explores the complex histories and (mis)uses of synthesizers such as the vocoder, Moog, the DX7, and the TR-808. Her first book is Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde (Oxford University Press, 2019). She is a passionate disability justice advocate, and is the Board Chair at City Elementary, a K–8 school for neurodiverse children in Chicago.