Paper short abstract:

How do you play the theremin with your chin? The manifesto “Alternative techniques for the theremin” disrupts existing ways to activate this instrument from a critical disability studies, sound studies, performance studies, and critical AI perspective.

Paper long abstract:

How to play the theremin: Stand in front of it, left hand over the volume antenna, and right hand alongside the pitch antenna. The shape of your right hand and its distance from the pitch antenna determine the notes played.

For an instrument played through electromagnetic fields and without physical touch, the theremin supports a rigidity of playing at odds with its potential sphere of sound-making. Just as a player’s hand disrupts the theremin’s electromagnetic field to create sound, the manifesto “Alternative techniques for the theremin” disrupts existing manuals and techniques. This reactivates the instrument from a critical disability studies, sound studies, performance studies, and critical AI perspective. More specifically: How do you play the theremin without your left hand? How do you play with your chin? How do you play while sitting? How do you play while laying down?

Developed in conjunction with large language model Mistral AI! 8x7B, “Alternative techniques for the theremin” engages with AI to reimagine relationships between bodies, machines, and sounds, using AI prompting as its own methodology. AI prompting becomes ethnographic in the way I iteratively prompt and gather information by and about Mistral AI. AI prompting is also autoethnographic in the way Mistral AI responds to the prompts as its own self-reflection. It is twice over autoethnographic in how its responses reflect us back to ourselves: our own data compiled in training and remixed in generation. Through these entanglements, playing the theremin becomes a performance and reimagining of human and non-human bodies.