The Mushroom at the End of the Patch Cord: Modular Synthesis as Musical Cybernetics

Since the Covid pandemic it is increasingly common for ambient and experimental electronic musicians to circulate social media content of their synthesisers in the presence of plants, mushrooms and scenic natural landscapes. This article explores these sonic escapades into nature by conceptualising today’s modular synthesiser scene as a cybernetic counterculture for the age of digital platforms. The Eurorack modular synthesiser format lets musicians generate sound by connecting patch cords across modules such as oscillators, filters and sequencers. Today’s modular revival echoes the spirit of the ‘back to the land’ communalist counterculture of the 1960s in its fascination with small-scale DIY technologies, systems thinking, and the blurring of boundaries between nature and technology. At the same time, Eurorack’s modulation of consciousness is driven by digital manufacturing processes and the algorithmic feedback loops of social media, echoing an earlier vision of cybernetics as a dystopian science of control.