Essay by Kim Cascone

The increasing use of laptop computers in the performance of electronic music has resurrected timeworn issues for both musicians and audiences. Liberated by the use of the laptop as a musical instrument, musicians have blurred the boundaries separating studio and stage, as well as the corresponding authorial and performance modes of work. On the other hand, audiences experience the laptop's use as a musical instrument as a violation of the codes of musical performance. This is not a new issue for electronic music: the lack of visual stimuli while performing on technological "instruments" has plagued electronic music for over 40 years with little progress in providing solutions.

This essay discusses issues of performance from the point of view of how electronic music is received rather than how it is presented. Drawing on concepts found in "reception theory," I will examine three levels of reception inherent in the performance of laptop music as used in the performance of contemporary electronic music. These three levels are: the grain of laptop performance, the sequence of historical linkages, and the system of super-culture and its effect of the reception apparatus of the public...More