Hello.
This issue should be split in two part.
On one side there are consequences of the controls you use on the music you play, on the kind of operation you can do on your music, on the kind of operation you can imagine to do.
On the other side there are consequences on how people listen/see your performance. Since you also talked using yourself as a listener, I thought it was not far from your interests.
Second annotation: there is a point when quantity becomes quality. My experience here is limited to studying doublebass and playing doublebass in chamber groups and didactical and semi-professional orchestras, but I think I can trust that. If it's true that the sound/gesture splitting is always present even in acoustic instruments, it can't be compared to the electonics' case, expecially when you assume the point of view/listening of the public. With acoustic instrument you can build an artificial gesture but only *around* a set of actions which are (again, expecially for the public) extremely precise in their nature and their consequences and so can be easily identified. With electronics you can even completely change your gesture between two performances (even if it's not necessarily a good thing for the quality of the performance!).
Of course what I say it only partially true (but it's hard to be exhaustive by mail) and we can complicate more the discussion since this has relations with all kind of questions I have in mind and other things I talk with my teacher.
I'm sorry if sometimes I say trivial things but I don't have specific education in this field and don't have people to compare with, since in my class most discussions (if any) are still about "if using Csound makes you a computer geek or an artist". So what I say mostly basically reflects what a person can understand walking in the darkness. If it's true that you can find articles on the web about that, understanding the consequences of these issues on thinking music, organizing your own work, preparing a performance, balancing research and production in everyday work is more complicated.
And I think that I can hear this in performances, and see it reflected in the way of sitting at a desk behind a laptop. The attention of the performer seems focused on moving the cursor to place X on the screen, and not on making sound Y in the room.
This is because of
have a positive example in my teacher. I mean that using his limited devices he developed a very good which I currently still lack.
I didn't see many laptop musician performances but from what I saw, what I'm told and what I imagine, I share exactly your same feelings. I also would like to have a similar approach to improvisation and that's why I'm working on my MetaControl. I would only love to get the real result quicker but I think I have to live with that.
I'm glad to read and write the mails in this thread. It makes me feel as I were not completely off road.
Regards,
Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu.