Investigating Affordances in Networks of "Things", "Performers", and "Composers": The Multimodal Lab as Site of Knowledge Production

This paper builds on a lecture delivered at the Transplanted Roots Percussion Research Symposium (Porto, 2025) and presents findings from a two-day artistic research lab—the first experiment of my doctoral project. The lab explored collaborative entan- glements among “performer”, “composer”, and musicking technology, grounded in theories by Rheinberger, de Assis, Gibson, and Barad. Centred on a DIY cassette-tape apparatus, it employed a multimodal approach combining performance, reflection, documentation, and conversation, supported by video, photography, field notes, and ethnographic protocols. The study investigates how roles, affordances, and material agencies emerge through intra-action, demonstrating how knowledge arises not from outcomes but through the unfolding processes of experimentation.