This talk will be evenly split between a review of my past user interface work and an introduction to the foundation of newer ongoing work on cultural resonance of instruments of interaction. I will share elements from my previous work on musical user interfaces that are relevant to broader human interaction problems. Enthusiasts of multitouch may be surprised to learn of its rich history which I trace back to the late nineteenth century (for electronic implementations) and earlier in acoustic musical instruments.

Working on a comprehensive theory of cultural resonance of interaction technologies I have discovered an disturbingly large number of important interfaces that are deliberately anti-ergonomic. I will illustrate this with a critical look at some popular musical instruments and asocial media devices such as the walkman, iPod, and iPhone.