Fourteen years of nime: the value and meaning of 'community' in interactive music research

This paper examines the notion of community as commonly employed within NIME discourses. Our aim is to clarify and define the term through the community of practice framework. We argue that through its formal use and application, the notion of community becomes a significant space for the examination of emergent musical practices that could otherwise be overlooked. This paper defines community of practice, as originally developed in the social sciences by Lave and Wegener, and applies it within the NIME context through the examination of existing communities of practice such as the laptop performance community, laptop orchestras, as well as the Satellite CCRMA and Patchblocks communities.