No-gos, Incidents, Malfunctions and Errors

This story is about a performance I did with my former instrument named the "despophone". I built the instrument as a critique of the contemporary demand for seamless responsiveness in musical interfaces.

At the time, I was dissatisfied with interfaces that responded too reliably. Buttons were too obedient, sensors too eager. I wanted an instrument that could doubt me, something that would occasionally say no or at least not yet. The result was a table-sized assemblage of salvaged circuit boards, piezo discs glued with epoxy that never fully cured, a small fan motor, and a custom patch that translated unstable voltage into brittle, percussive sound. I called it a “semi-autonomous listening device,” which was generous. In reality, it was an argument held together with tape.

The performance took place in a small black box venue. The soundcheck was rushed; the soundperson looked tired and mildly hostile, as if experimental musicians were an occupational hazard. When I explained that the instrument needed to be “left alone for a moment before it would speak,” they nodded without listening and asked if it had XLR.

On stage, under lights that were warmer than my workshop, the instrument began to behave differently. The fan motor—meant to gently agitate a contact mic—started spinning faster than expected. The piezos fed back into one another. The system produced a low electrical whine I had never heard before. It wasn’t loud, but it was invasive, like tinnitus projected outward.

I tried to slow it down. The knobs felt suddenly symbolic rather than functional. Each adjustment seemed to provoke the opposite response. The patch froze, unfroze, then froze again. The instrument emitted a single sharp click, like punctuation, and then went silent.

At first, I thought this was a minor glitch—something the audience might read as intentional restraint. I waited. Silence stretched. I became acutely aware of my breathing, the audience’s shifting weight, the soundperson’s hand hovering near the mute button. I tapped the table lightly. Nothing. I lifted one of the piezos; the epoxy gave way and the disc fell, dangling by its wire like a loose tooth.

Then the smell arrived.

It was faint but unmistakable: overheated plastic, something electrical crossing a line. A thin thread of smoke rose from the power distribution board. Not dramatic enough to justify panic, but sufficient to reframe the silence. I remember thinking, with a strange calm, so this is the instrument deciding to exit.

I unplugged everything. The smoke stopped. The silence remained, now heavier, less ambiguous. I looked up at the audience for the first time. Some were smiling politely. One person was clearly enjoying this more than sound. I felt an urge to explain, to narrate the failure, to translate it back into meaning. I resisted.

Instead, I stood there for the remaining time slot, hands off the table, listening to the room. HVAC hum. A chair creak. Someone coughing. The instrument, inert, finally perfectly quiet. In a way, it had achieved what I asked of it: refusal, hesitation taken to its logical extreme.

Afterwards, several people told me they found the performance “brave.” One asked if the smoke was part of the composition. The soundperson avoided eye contact. Back home, I discovered that a voltage regulator had burned out, likely due to a feedback loop I had underestimated. A simple failure, technically speaking.

I never repaired the instrument. Not out of respect, exactly, but because it felt complete. It had performed its last and most decisive gesture. It taught me that failure is not always collapse; sometimes it is clarity. The moment when an object stops negotiating and states, unequivocally, this is as far as I go.