New digital instruments borrow work-processes and gestures from older ones (ergomimesis)

Ergomimesis is Magnusson’s term for applying the work-processes (ergon = work) of one domain to another when designing new instruments: we mime and imitate the actions and processes of an established practice and re-implement those patterns in a new object. Crucially, any such copying is itself a new event carrying noise, error, and misunderstanding — and that noise is a wellspring of creative adaptation and innovation. A carried-over gesture is an ‘ergophor’ (on the pattern of metaphor). This explains why digital instruments feel rooted in pre-digital practice: a MIDI saxophone, a swipe gesture, or a knob on a soft-synth transduces embodied motor patterns from earlier media into new ones.

Examples

The swipe gesture in a PDF reader borrowed from turning pages; a software knob or fader miming a hardware mixer; a live-coding pattern language echoing staff-notation idioms.

Assessment

Define ergomimesis and identify one gesture or work-process in a digital music tool that was carried over from an older instrument or medium; note what ‘noise’ the translation introduced.