On 25 March 2010 23:33, Kassen <signal.automatique_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> What
> we are doing, IMHO is objecting to the lack of transparency in most
> performances of computer music. I'd go as far as claiming that more
> transparency there will lead to a greater intensity of the experience, to
> both the audience and the performer, but that is very much "original
> research".
I agree, so whisper your thoughts into the ear of a passing
journalist, or publish a paper on a subject :)
> Why do we do this at all?
I think it's the usual desire to not only create things, but be close
to the things we are creating. Usual software environments and
approaches to computer science tries to enforce distance between
programmer and code, through pre-planning, test harnesses, quality
control, and multiple levels of `black box' abstraction. Live coding
allows the opposite -- you plan and test through the process of making
and your whole program is in front of you.
I've been enjoying parts of this paper:
http://www.papert.org/articles/EpistemologicalPluralism.html
"The conventional route into formal systems, through the manipulation
of abstract symbols, closes doors that the computer can open. The
computer, with its graphics, its sounds, its text and animation, can
provide a port of entry for people whose chief ways of relating to the
world are through movement, intuition, visual impression, the power of
words and associations. And it can provide a privileged point of entry
for people whose mode of approach is through a close, bodily
identification with the world of ideas or those who appropriate
through anthropomorphization. The computational object, on the border
between the idea and a physical object, offers new possibilities."
By placing ourselves, as code authors, in the same time frame as the
interpretation of our code, we are anthropomorphising our code.
Purist computer scientists, like Dijkstra, want to stamp out all
anthropomorphism from code:
"I have now encountered programs wanting things, knowing things,
expecting things, believing things, etc., and each time that gave rise
to avoidable confusions. The analogy that underlies this
personification is so shallow that it is not only misleading but also
paralyzing."
I think Turkle would say Dijkstra's is the dominant 'planner'
masculine approach, against the more creative 'bricolage' feminine
approach. Perhaps in that case live coders are all feminists. I'd
love people's opinions on this, especially if you disagree.
Cheers,
alex
--
http://yaxu.org/
Received on Fri Mar 26 2010 - 09:48:59 GMT