Got myself into trouble last night, as a result of this discussion.
Have been coaching a group of 14 year-olds who provided live-coded interludes during the local high school end-of-year talent show.
My role last night: stand-up argument with school head of drama who told the lighting guys to turn off the projector during one of the acts - "we need to be careful with the projector, because we're going to be using it for important stuff after the interval"
Any suggestions for how to word my diplomatic apology this morning will be welcome!
Alan
> On 17 Dec 2014, at 19:10, David Ogborn <ogbornd_at_mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>
> I think that's one of the areas, broadly speaking, that really excites me: proliferating "secondary notations" for live coding. A simple thing (could be tweeted!) would just be live commentary by "expert" observers, sports event style - as in Stephen Ramsay's Algorithms are Thoughts, Chainsaws are Tools video.
>
> Yours truly,
> David
>
> On 2014-12-17, at 1:53 PM, Jeffrey Brown wrote:
>> That raises an interesting tradeoff, between concision and
>> viewer-friendliness.
>>
>> I like to keep function and other names as short as possible, subject to
>> the constraint that someone familiar with the context should be able to
>> guess what a word stands for. For instance, I generally use "cond" instead
>> of "condition" because in the problem domains I code for, there's generally
>> no other word that "cond" could stand for. (In a real estate context it
>> might be confusable for "condemn" or "condominium", but in a music context,
>> no obvious alternative interpretations spring to mind.) But the programmer
>> will be a lot more familiar with the context than a livecode audience
>> member.
>>
>> One could offer the best of both worlds if a second screen contained
>> definitions of the functions and objects being used in the first. Perhaps
>> updated automatically to reflect whatever is nearest the cursor. Perhaps
>> reacting to tweets from the audience.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 6:27 AM, David Ogborn <ogbornd_at_mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Chiming in... I think the visual disposition of the code can present quite
>>> different messages to a crowd about whether the code is supposed to be
>>> pertinent to them or not, independently of the sonic result or "underlying"
>>> algorithm. So I think in discussions of whether audiences are friendly to
>>> algorithms or not, we shouldn't forget to consider whether the algorithms
>>> are being presented to them in a friendly manner or not - it's a two way
>>> street!
>>>
>>> Small fonts and walls of code can say "you don't/can't/shouldn't really
>>> attend to this closely."
>>>
>>> Big fonts, going step by step, interjecting comments can say "this is as
>>> much a communication with you the audience as it is a communication between
>>> the performer and the computer".
>>>
>>> Yours truly,
>>> David
>>>
>>> On 2014-12-16, at 12:13 PM, Scott Wilson wrote:
>>>> Well the algounfriendly aside (you cant please those people!), I think
>>> its surprisingly accessible.
>>>>
>>>> I recently did a concert in St. Johns, Newfoundland, which included a
>>> telematic live coding performance, to an audience of mostly non-composer,
>>> non-programmer, non-experimental, mostly classical music people, and they
>>> really got and loved it. They thought it was virtuosic, intriguing,
>>> musical, funny
>>>>
>>>> Of course they liked the Cage piece we did too, so perhaps they were
>>> just an exceptionally receptive crowd! ;-)
>>>>
>>>> S.
>>>>
>>>> On 16 Dec 2014, at 17:02, Amy Alexander <amy_at_plagiarist.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Scott,
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes! I like to watch the performative activity too. But I think this is
>>> not
>>>>> universal for everybody, as it's a new thing for people. As with John
>>>>> Cage's performance for the 1960 TV studio audience (and some
>>> contemporary
>>>>> YouTube viewers), many people aren't sure what to make of livecoding
>>> yet.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm guessing it's easier for algoliterate or at least algofriendly
>>>>> audiences to appreciate livecoding performance than it is for people who
>>>>> are put off by code and algorithms. Although a lot of people are
>>>>> algofriendly these days, I get the sense it's still a leap for them to
>>> deal
>>>>> with algorithms in the performative context. It's just much different
>>> than
>>>>> what they're exposed to in the context of music (or visuals, etc.)
>>> Sort of
>>>>> like the people trying to grok Cage's blender and bathtub as music -
>>> they
>>>>> understood blenders and bathtubs, and that blenders and bathtubs make
>>>>> sounds, but the idea that everyday sound could be music was still a leap
>>>>> for them.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't expect livecoding to follow the same trajectory toward
>>> acceptance
>>>>> as Cage's work, as there's a lot different culturally. It's possible
>>> that
>>>>> once everyone is algoliterate the idea of livecoding will seem so banal
>>>>> we'll have to project nanophysics instead...
>>>>>
>>>>> -Amy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The algofriendly get that it's performative, where as the algounfriendly
>>>>> just see it as typing code.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 3:26 AM, Scott Wilson <s.d.wilson_at_bham.ac.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Amy,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 16 Dec 2014, at 06:03, Amy Alexander <amy_at_plagiarist.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think what confuses audience members is the part about understanding
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> performance. Someone may not know how to play the violin, but there's
>>> a
>>>>>>> direct visual -> auditory connection between bowing & fingering and
>>> the
>>>>>>> sound that's produced. Wind instruments are arguably more complicated
>>> to
>>>>>>> understand because it's harder to correlate fingering to pitch - but
>>>>>> people
>>>>>>> generally don't care because the direct correlation is still there.
>>> With
>>>>>>> livecoding the correlation is a little more complicated - the text
>>>>>> doesn't
>>>>>>> usually change in sync with the sound.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I usually think of it slightly more generally: Things like playing the
>>>>>> piano, violin, electric guitar, or even the contrabassoon have in
>>> common
>>>>>> with live coding that there are aspects of those activities which
>>> remain
>>>>>> largely opaque to audiences. Classic cartoons in which a conductor
>>> changing
>>>>>> her or his gestures results in different pieces of music show how
>>> shallow
>>>>>> the actual understanding can be for many audience members. The
>>> difference,
>>>>>> however, is that those are what we might call received sorts of
>>>>>> performance, and are considered self-evidentally performative.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> When I first saw projected live coding, what very much surprised me was
>>>>>> how much of a performative activity it seemed to be, in contrast to so
>>> much
>>>>>> laptop performance. The fact that it was in a language that I didnt
>>> know,
>>>>>> and therefore couldnt entirely understand, was not a particularly
>>> important
>>>>>> factor. What was important was that it *was* obviously performative,
>>> and
>>>>>> even dramatic. That it could become a received form of performance
>>> seemed
>>>>>> clear!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One contrast with much music was the obvious aspect of more extended
>>>>>> preparation for events, but that made it more performative to me, not
>>> less.
>>>>>> There is an arc of expectation as a live coder gets ready for her next
>>>>>> execution! So showing code was not about facilitating understanding
>>> from
>>>>>> my perspective that didnt matter so much but more about making it more
>>>>>> self-evidently a performance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> S.
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
>>>>>> http://lurk.org/r/topic/1HDTrGqI8Zk67qXLcfbP5K
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following
>>> email
>>>>>> subject: unsubscribe
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
>>>>> http://lurk.org/r/topic/4l1ZwmDnTTrATWhOJRasiB
>>>>>
>>>>> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following
>>> email subject: unsubscribe
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
>>>> http://lurk.org/r/topic/5lzHq6EDxO6N4U8o2UCmEi
>>>>
>>>> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following
>>> email subject: unsubscribe
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Dr. David Ogborn, Associate Professor, Multimedia
>>> Acting Chair, M.A. in Communication & New Media
>>> McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
>>> +1-905-525-9140 ext 27603 http://www.d0kt0r0.net
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
>>> http://lurk.org/r/topic/6othXWxEiinF2LvBPyfruh
>>>
>>> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following email
>>> subject: unsubscribe
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
>> http://lurk.org/r/topic/6704EjNEXQW2RTVBCDtM1v
>>
>> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following email subject: unsubscribe
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. David Ogborn, Associate Professor, Multimedia
> Acting Chair, M.A. in Communication & New Media
> McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
> +1-905-525-9140 ext 27603 http://www.d0kt0r0.net
>
>
> --
>
> Read the whole topic here: livecode:
> http://lurk.org/r/topic/yI6imbVGhAKaub6hzEg9a
>
> To leave livecode, email livecode_at_group.lurk.org with the following email subject: unsubscribe
--
Alan Blackwell
Reader in Interdisciplinary Design, University of Cambridge
Further details from www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/
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Read the whole topic here: livecode:
http://lurk.org/r/topic/srOfWWysKiWC0372ea0Of
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Received on Thu Dec 18 2014 - 07:55:27 GMT