shinkoyo and wheelchairs

I discovered this interesting music collective called shinkoyo, a group of people living a la squat style in an industrial space in brooklyn. Some members of the collective are electroacoustic composers and you can listen to their music at shinkoyo.com.

From what I know of this arrangement there is considerable sharing of music technology between members. I was thinking about whether or not I would be comfortable with this type of arrangement, and I decided that I don't think I could do it. For me, a computer has become an integral part of the way I compose and to lend it, would be like lending a personal instrument - a great deal of trust is required. I worked at camp a few years ago where all of the clientele were from at-risk or special needs populations. I had a very interesting conversation with a man who was paralyzed in an accident and now requires a wheelchair to be mobile. He talked about how he was sensitive about his wheelchair, for a stranger to touch it was the equivalent of having a stranger touch him. "It's my legs", he said, "you don't just touch someone's legs." This led me to think about my own attachments to objects, whether they were necessary for basic needs such as movement or whether they were things that I depend on to function in other ways. I find that my dependency on computer technology has increased over the years, I have become so accustomed to recording my compositions with a computer that it would be hard to do without. I had a computer die at the beginning of the year and I became aware of how depedent I was on it. Just as instrumentalists spend hours a day practicing, I spend hours a day composing and recording with a computer. In many ways my computer is my musical legs.