Currently my research work consists of studying teaching, with a focus on ethics and design, and the exploration of New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME). In the last few years I have realized the importance of understanding the impact of colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism in the work I do. That means that often I spend more time thinking about how I do work than doing the work itself.
Teaching Research:
Emergent Encounters Action Project - Matt Borland and Craig Fortier
The Emergent Encounters Action Project aims to provide time and space for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members at UW to connect and build relationships around social justice issues. Funded through a UW LITE grant, the project’s first cycle saw a variety of alternative pedagogical approaches being used to engage participants in a series of five workshops around the themes of Deep Listening, Encounter, Relationship, Small Actions, and Repair. Transdisciplinary by design, each session saw a mix of art, storytelling, conversation, and skill development that was aimed at nourishing the mycorrhizal networks that support social justice movements. This work was centred around challenging the cis-hetero-patriarchal norms of the University and the western capitalist and neoliberal values that make a relational way of being seem hard to realize within the dominant culture in North America. Major influences on the project include Subcomandante Marcos, Cindy Milstein, adrienne maree brown, William Woodworth, and Fred Moten, among many others.
Music Research:
Hybrid Digital Shruti Box - Matt Borland and Gurpreet Chana
The Shruti Box is a drone instrument in the free reed family, related to pump organs, harmoniums, and accordions. It is an instrument that breathes through a pair of bellows, a rather human characteristic, which is the focus of its modification. In terms of engineering, the design is fairly simple, consisting of a pressure sensor, micro-controller and toggle switches which are used to mimic the existing user interface of the instrument. This combination acts as a plug-and-play MIDI controller which allows the physical sound production approach of the Shruti Box to be mapped to the world of computer music. As a bridge that serves to connect the analog and the digital worlds, it provides a unique expressive possibility for a musician to add this "breath" to their performance. Played as a hybrid instrument, producing both sound from its reeds and from a synthesizer, it melds these words together in a droning hum. Extending the traditional instrument through this new capability to design its sounds is also a major opportunity to be explored.
