Julian;
My speculation would be the following: we are living in a time where
> knowledge and elitism are considered to come together. Anything that appears
> to have to do with the formal-mathematical is associated with the elite, and
> for many people a considerable fear of it from school remains; therefore
> programming is typically framed in the sense of necessary, but eventually
> uninteresting means, and not something to be exposed.
Yeah, true. A while ago I read a article on math education that claimed the
whole thing was set up in a way that couldn't help but kill the enjoyment
people might otherwise find in it (cue conspiracies about the Prusian System
or notes on budget cuts removing tallented teachers). To be honest; I can't
blame them, it's not like I enjoyed it, for me math only became fun once it
started to become useful to create some fun noises or get into Game Theory.
I couldn't blame anyone for finding it hard to understand we might enjoy
math, that we'd seriously think sitting down on a saturday night to
creatively express ourselves creatively through math while having a beer is
fun. It almost sounds like recreational trips to the dentist.
> Once it is exposed, all these accusations - nerdiness, showing off, elitism
> come up. Personally, I find that projecting code is good, because it is an
> act of resistance against exactly the connection between (formal) knowledge
> and elitism, by showing that it can simply be done and enjoyed. Take the
> latent fear away from people that not understanding will give them low
> grades.
I'm not sure a conflict can be avoided because I think Western society is
actually in conflict with itself about coding. On one level code is scary,
hard and abstract, probably best left to experts who are basically estranged
scientists. At the same time it's also seen as boring grunt work, performed
by "information age factory workers" who are paid to do the boring bits
after the tallented people in design and marketing have come up with their
visionary plans.
Both of those might have a bit of truth in some practical situations but I
suspect that society believes both to be true to the extreme at the same
time and gets very uncomfortable with the conflict between them. This isn't
unlike how in the cold war "the enemy" was both technologically backwards as
well as a enormeous thread at the same time.
I think it's little wonder that if we take this fine line between those
conflicting ideas, say it's a tightrope and start dancing on it wearing a
funny hat people will start getting uncomfortable.
> I would try though to avoid any claims of authenticity, of more complete
> access, the "real" machine etc., for theoretical reasons, but also simply
> because it gives substance to a lot of these accusations.
>
That's true. I'm more interested in me being open towards the audience than
in the audience really understanding every line though I'm not yet sure how
I should convey that. I also think that Marcel's approach to making it all
accesible by focussing on the skill, turning that into a competition with
short bouts like turntablism does make a lot of sense as a way to make it
all accissible. For one thing putting performers up against eachother might
aleviate the feelings of a performer-audience competition. I don't think
that's a good overall solution though as competition is a bit boring in the
long run (that and I'd get slaughtered by some of the people here :-) ).
With the comment on AA-cell being better (according to one poster) than Slub
it looks like at least the skill is clear but seems to take precedence in
the mind of some over the expressive aspect; turntablism often suffers from
that as well, I think.
Not all of this needs to be solved by us either; I also feel it's perfectly
valid for artists to simply address and point at social phenomena that would
otherwise go unnoticed. Good thing there is no real conflict for us between
these political sides to it and simply enjoying making music. I strongly
suspect many protest singers were chiefly in it because they liked to strum
a guitar as well.
Yours.
Kas.
Received on Sat Aug 29 2009 - 17:01:49 BST