The O in NIME: Reflecting on the Importance of Reusing and Repurposing Old Musical Instruments

In this paper, we reflect on the focus of “newness” in NIME research and practice and argue that there is a missing O (for “Old”) in framing our academic discourse. A systematic review of the last year’s conference proceedings reveals that most papers do, indeed, present new instruments, interfaces, or pieces of technology. Comparably few papers focus on the prolongation of existing NIMEs. Our meta-analysis identifies four main categories from these papers: (1) reuse, (2) update, (3) complement, and (4) long-term engagement. We discuss how focusing more on these four types of NIME development and engagement can be seen as an approach to increase sustainability.