Towards a Ubimus Archaeology

Résumé En

In this paper, we attempt to lay out a new area for ubimus, which not only connects with a number of existing interests within the field, but forges new possibilities for collaboration with other disciplines. We explore the idea of ubimus archaeology from four separate but overlapping perspectives: music software, creative resources, creative models, and creative ecosystems. Following a widely-laid out characterisation of these areas, we provide a practical exploration of music software archaeology. This is focused on the rescuing of three classic music programming systems: MUSIC V, CMUSIC, and MIT-EMS Csound. Ubimus deals with musical material resources, activities and by-products. One of the targets of the field is the advancement of design thinking, avoiding the pitfalls of fixation on design approaches restricted to an isolated piece of hardware, an instrument, a musical genre or to the constraints implied by some practices constructed around each of those items. An important aspect of ubimus research is the collection of data through field deployments of working prototypes or systems. While this is non-trivial for current technology, it is even more difficult for legacy technology. Problems include lack of access to hardware, lack of support for software, deficient documentation, limited practical usage and limited understanding of the social implications of music practices in contexts that in some cases are incompatible with current forms of music thinking.