Eliot Bates

Eliot Bates researches the design, materiality, sensoriums and interfaciality of music technologies—and the gear cultures formed around them. Their book Digital Tradition: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul’s Recording Studio Culture (OUP, 2016) documents this within Istanbul’s recording studios, instrument factories and music industries. Since 2013, their work has broadened to European, North American and Australian audio technology gear cultures, which will manifest in a co-authored book (with Samantha Bennett, ANU) for MIT Press. Bates is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the CUNY Graduate Center and currently produces microtonal electronic music as the artist Makamqore and as half of the duo Manifestoon Platoon.