Thinking with Technology: Hacking, Making and Improvisation

Design is not exclusively about a marketable end product. Design is also a process that might be less about solving problems and more about improvisatory and speculative thinking. To de-sign is to sketch, mark out, experiment. In this talk I will present a method of improvisatory design thinking that is based on a technical library we call the Organium. The library consists of technical elements and work processes that support quick and agile design processes, brainstorming and hacking. Drawing from examples in creative coding, networked performance, and experimental instrument design, I argue that hacking is not just a technical activity but a mode of thinking through improvisation—an engagement with the affordances and constraints of technology that reshapes our technical imaginaries and opens new creative possibilities for Web Audio.

Thor Magnusson is a research professor at the University of Iceland and a professor of future music in the Music Department at the University of Sussex. His research interests include musical performance, improvisation, new technologies for musical expression, live coding, musical notation, artificial intelligence and computational creativity. He runs the Intelligent Instruments Lab (<www.iil.is>) at the University of Iceland. His research has roots equally in practice and theory and recent books include 'Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic and Signal Inscription' and 'Live Coding: A User's Manual', published by Bloomsbury Academic and MIT Press respectively.

Web Audio Conference 2025: day 1