Ambient Machines: Synthesis in the domestic sphere

Abstract The article undertakes an original reframing of the significance of modular synthesisers by attending critically to their audiovisual presentation alongside houseplants and other signifiers of domesticity. This visual framing – all too easily dismissed as decorative superficiality – is shown to be concomitant with a domestic imaginary and concerns for portability evident in the development of early North American synthesisers. Analysis of historical artefacts and interviews identifies the importance of portability to the realisation of a domestic imaginary in early synthesiser development. The contemporary emergence and audiovisual documentation of ‘ambient machines’ as recognisable configurations of modular instruments for the automatic production of ambient music is shown to develop these concerns towards the realisation of synthesiser as domestic appliance. Through the symbolic and functional pairing of plants and synthesisers in domestic settings, the modular synthesiser comes to be associated with ideas of nurturing and care.