Abstract Music is a social practice, often created in an interactive relationship between humans and their instruments (Cerulo 2009; Small 1997). Experienced musicians develop a close affective relation with the objects involved in musicking. These interactions between human and non-human actants can unfold into a relationship in which various social processes of negotiation, friction, and confrontation emerge (see Tatar and Pasquier 2018; Thelle and Wærstad. 2023).

In contemporary electroacoustic music, the instruments often consist of micromechanical, electronic or electromagnetic technologies, which can be considered complex music systems. They are often not fully stable, transparently functional or controllable—even moody. A deep understanding of their “personalities” can give way to new forms and qualities of (artistic) expression that would otherwise remain unseen (see Borgo 2016; Guinan 2024).

We, the authors of this proposal, collaborate in the artistic research project “Spirits in Complexity”. For this laboratory, we want to present our reflections on our ongoing research on the connection between machines and humans. This approach focuses more specifically on obsolete sound machines—tapes, radios, cassettes—and our relationship with them. How does this situation of fragility, this imminent threat of becoming waste, affect this interaction? The disintegration processes through which a machine reveals its materiality and structure—its truest self.

Do machines have a personality? Can you experience these personalities from the interactions with them and do they change in their life span? Do you influence each other when collaborating? How do we understand them or relate to them? Do we anthropomorphise or empower them (see Young et al. 2011)?

How does the use of technology change when we shift from a controlling perspective to a non-hierarchical attitude—when we include these machines as collaborators and storytellers instead (see Haraway 2016)?