I'm going to be a little controversial here and say that we tend to
overplay the audiovisual-aesthetic (as opposed to a programming-
aesthetic) influence that our programming languages have upon us.
While I agree that certain environments have a particular "sound", my
gut feeling is that the reason programming environments have a
particular "sound or look" is more likely to be attributed to leading
practitioners than to the programming language (I'm specifically
talking about general purpose programming languages here).
This is not to say that the environment doesn't have an influence -
which of course it does. But audiovisual aesthetics and syntax/
program-semantics are largely, though I agree not completely, separate
concerns. Yes, programming languages encourage loops, but so does
music. Looping over what musical/sonic parameters, over what
duration, at what level of abstraction, and with what regularity?
Most people do loops the same way as the guy before, not because the
programming environment "encourages" loops, but because that's the
sound they have in their head.
The absolute classic example of this problem for me is Casey Reas and
the "Processing aesthetic". Early on in processing's life every
processing piece looked like Casey's work. And why not, Casey did
some beautiful work. Over time, the work coming from the processing
community has become much more diverse as other practitioners become
recognised by the processing community - and subsequently have their
work imitated. Some may argue that this is because the processing
environment has evolved down different paths, but again my gut
suspicion is that it's taken some time for people to find their own
voice and escape Casey's influence. (The irony here being that Casey
didn't use processing all that much as far as I'm aware :)
Kassen mentioned Fluxus and Impromptu potentially being quite similar
as they share a syntax. This is interesting, as I think it is a good
example of what I'm talking about. Syntactically similar yes, but
aesthetically the work from these two communities seems quite
different. What do you think Dave?
On 27/11/2009, at 8:55 AM, Juan Gabriel Alzate Romero wrote:
> Hi Kassen,
>
> I've been following the thread with enthusiasm because I'm writing
> my thesis exactly about this kind of problem.
>
>>
>> I would therefore predict that SC and CK -based pieces would be
>> more "loopy" than CSound ones. Images generated in Fluxus or
>> Impromptu would likely tend to be more alike each other than like
>> ones generated in Processing, I would predict as Impromptu and
>> Fluxus are more alike syntactically.
>
> I think with the time the musician becomes influenced by the tool he
> uses, as you describe it, the SC or Chuck generated music tends to
> be loopy (musn't be) because the tool or language makes this kinds
> of tasks easier. I've got the idea on a festival at the ZKM after 3
> days of electronic music from different german studios one could
> blindly say: this one's with Max, this one's SC, this one is... wow!
> Something different! And it was indeed somethingdifferent or a
> mixture of systems that made the flavour of this music somewhat
> different. I think the environment influences a lot on the musical
> creativity. After months or years, one stops about thinking in
> musical actions or repeats but instead one thinks instantly in
> routines, tasks, triggers... whatever you want and one could feel
> this aesthetic in the music.
> I'm not saying all the music in Max sounds the same, or all the
> music in SC, ChucK, Impromptu... etc shares the 'same' aesthetic,
> that's up to the composer. But usually at the beginning one is
> limited to the 'easy' things the environment gives you and therefore
> one uses these more often.
>
> I haven't found much literature on this matter and I'm taking the
> programming paradigms and syntax as a reference to compare it to the
> musical results made in each system. If maybe someone has some hints
> I would be very thankful.
>
> Finally, I think the environmet itself inspires the musician/
> programmer to make such things... I compare it to a painter having a
> model... using different techniques and materials, but the face of
> the model would be the same or at least recognizable (let's say Dali-
> Gala).
>
> Maybe I'm totally worng, but I would like to elaborate more on this
> theory and write in my Thesis some questions for future research.
>
> Best,
> Juan
Received on Fri Nov 27 2009 - 00:24:28 GMT