Démonter, extraire, combiner, remonter. Commodore 64 et créolisation

Abstract

francaisCet article est consacre a la construction du “MIDIbox SID synthesizer”, un synthetiseur musical construit grâce a la combinaison de technologies passees (low-tech) et recentes (high-tech). Cette machine, utilisee tant pour la production que pour la scene, nous offre un cas interessant de description et de precision de la notion de creolisation technique proposee par l’historien des techniques anglais David Edgerton. En decrivant la chaine operatoire qui mene des bricoleurs informatiques et musiciens a extraire differents composants de cet ordinateur des annees 1980, et a les combiner dans un objet technique plus recent, il montre une demarche d’innovation singuliere qui interroge en retour le lien souvent fait entre “innovation” et production de nouveaute. Celle-ci permet, in fine, de sortir de l’opposition classique low-tech/high-tech pour saisir plus finement l’heterogeneite de la constitution des objets techniques. EnglishThis article focuses on the design of the “MIDIbox SID synthesizer”, a musical synthesizer that is made of the combination of past (low-tech) and recent (high-tech) technologies. This machine, used both for music production and stage shows, offers us an interesting case to illustrate and expand the concept of creole technologies proposed by the English historian of technology David Edgerton. By describing the operational sequence that leads computer tinkerers and musicians to extract different components of this computer of the 1980s, and to combine them in a more recent technical object, it shows a singular innovation approach which interrogates in return the link often made between “innovation” and the production of novelty. In the end, this allows us to shy away from the classic low-tech / high-tech opposition in order to grasp more finely the heterogeneity of the constitution of technical objects.