Gambiarra e a condição in(ter)dependente : relações ecológicas na construção de instrumentos musicais experimentais

Abstract

The article (in Brazilian Portuguese - a similar version in English is available on KOPS) addresses the creative practices employed in the construction of alternative musical instruments, as observed in the work of the Indonesian experimental duo Senyawa. We analyse how artisanal reuse processes of "gambiarra" are intertwined with geographical spaces, technical skills, infrastructure conditions and local resources. At the same time as demonstrating how the gestures of ingenuity and adaptation involved in gambiarra practices present a particular applied techno-cultural logic, we highlight how the recurrent romanticisation of prevailing infrastructure problems present in these contexts can be detrimental. This perspective, drawn from an analysis of everyday tool-building practices, aims to overcome the fetish often observed for these informal solutions and the common interpretation of gambiarras as means of socio-economic disruption. More modestly, we argue that, as an experimental practice, gambiarra intrinsically engenders a principle of interdependence and can lead to fruitful insights about the epistemic connections between environmental and infrastructural thinking.